The hypnotic slaps, thumps, and crack of the drum have taken a turn that permeates the core with dissonance. Chaos ensues and the previous moments of harmony give way to a nerve-twitching racket. Waving his left hand high, the facilitator calls out, “I like choc-o-late” (dum clack, bom dun clack!). To the right he conducts, “I like straw-berries” (dum clack dum slap slap!”). To the middle, “I like coffee” (dum clack boom!). Eyes closed, each player focuses on his or her section’s rhythm.

Jenny Swerdlow is a woman rooted in rhythm, arms extended in poetic resonance with Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. After ten years as an art therapist working with traumatized youth, she met Arthur Hull, a key figure in the expansion of the international Drum Circle Movement. “Upon placing my hand on the djembe for the first time,” says Swerdlow, “it was as if a door to the universe opened … The joy, power, connection, and release I felt while drumming was like nothing I had experienced before.”