Taal Inc.

What happens when we drum?

All of the above examples show that there is an implicit connection between us and our inner drummer. We’ve been drumming together in groups since before we remember even. Listening to an intricate, polyrhythmic, West African Djembe Rhythm gets our feet tapping in minutes because we’ve already subconsciously accessed the inheritance of our collective unconscious. That is to say we’re channeling our drummer elders / ancestors and opening up a pathway to a new potential connection to our own selves.

Today, we experience the use of group drumming activities in various areas (be it for corporate groups, for creative art therapy with communities, expressive art therapy for special needs groups, for team building Pune, for audience engagement at conferences and expos, for corporate training and more). The bottom line of all these sessions is that indulging in a drum circle activity helps us feel a sense of belonging to something larger than our perceived tribe or surrounding. This brings us to the ‘Here and Now’ for that period of time. The more we access 100% of ourselves at each given moment, the more relaxed we are, the more happy we are, the more aware we are (of our selves, of our true potential and of each other).

Learn About Team Building Activities in Pune

Over the last decade as Pune progressed into becoming one of the few IT hubs in the country, the need for team corporate engagement activities also saw a surge and Taal Inc. is one of the first few organisations in Pune and in the country that’s been offering these Team Building Activities in Pune in fun, engaging yet impactful ways for over 12 years. The Drum Circles conducted by Taal Inc. are among the most interactive and effective employee engagement activities you can organise with your team. Apart from Drum Circles, Taal Inc. has a host of other fun employee engagement activities be it our short and long term theme/objective based interventions, our signature Ex-Change programmes where the name stands for ‘Express for Change” and that’s exactly what these 90-120 minutes sessions with mixed activities do or our boomwhacker sessions where the participants are given a beautiful sounding instrument called Boomwhackers to create a melodious rhythm together, all these activities are meticulously planned and curated after having discussions with the HR team or the person organising the activity to address a certain desired outcome and these messages are so subtly and intricately woven with our fun employee engagement activities that it always leaves the participants asking for more.

Expressive Arts with Akshata

Akshata Parekh is an Expressive Arts Therapy Practitioner who uses dance/movement, visual art, and rhythm as a therapeutic tool. She has successfully completed The Taal Inc. Facilitator Training Program and an intensive six-day training with Arthur Hull (Village Music Circles, USA). She is presently pursuing her master’s in Clinical Mental Health psychology specialisation in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University (Boston). She is a counsellor and has completed courses in Dance Movement therapy, Visual Art therapy and NLP in India. She is a certified ‘Rhythm-to-recovery’ facilitator (a program using rhythm in therapeutic settings). She is a member of the Creative Movement therapy association of India.

Kelvin Kew

The Vice-President of TTMDA made it to India for some TTM workshops on second attempt. Due some ‘Visa on Arrival’ issues in 2015, he had to actually return to Singapore and was denied entry on Indian soil. However, second time around in 2016, he made it much better prepared with his paperwork and we had successful workshops in Pune and Delhi ,drum classes in Mumbai . Each of these djembe workshops helped us in spreading awareness of traditional djembe playing in India and encourage the sprouting djembe communities in these cities. Kelvin is currently based in Singapore and travels the world teaching djembe (most extensively, China) and facilitating group drumming experiences for all kinds of groups.

Stress Reduction Activities

Taal Inc. is your company’s ‘Mental Health Support System’. Right from an arts-based mental health professional on-site, weekly employee engagement activities, fortnightly Team awareness building/support group sessions to monthly interactive gala events; we’ve got a solution to fit your Team Building Pune, Stress Reduction Activities and Group Cohesiveness Building needs.

What is Art Therapy?

Art Therapy is the use of various art-based modalities (drawing, painting, sketching, doodling, drumming, singing, dancing, creative writing, theatre activities and so on) with a particular group (over a period of time) to positively influence certain pre-decided behavioural (not necessarily artistic) objectives. This could be used in various settings such as hospitals, with special needs groups, at-risk groups, marginalized populations, underprivileged groups and more.

So, while a one-off drumming event can be therapeutic; wherein, there is an emergent experience of an epiphany (catharsis or heightened awareness), an Art Therapy session (that Taal Inc. calls Art Talks) is designed with a very specific purpose or objective that would be arrived upon based on a process and measured using psychometrics. So, in a therapy-driven culture where the word could be used rather loosely, it is of utmost importance to note the prerequisites of Creative Art Therapy.

Art therapy session at Taal

Art Based Therapy-Taal

Art Based therapy is the use or art based modalities such as Fine Art, Creative Movement, Music, Rhythm, Creative Writing and Drama based activities to work on an individual or group level, over a period of time to address a pre decided behavioural or therapy goal / objective. The use of the specific modality may vary depending on the objective of the sessions, the facilitator’s inclination or expertise and the ever-changing need of the group.

What is Art Therapy?

Art Therapy is the use of various art-based modalities (drawing, painting, sketching, doodling, drumming, singing, dancing, creative writing, theatre activities and so on) with a particular group (over a period of time) to positively influence certain pre-decided behavioural (not necessarily artistic) objectives. This could be used in various settings such as hospitals, with special needs groups, at-risk groups, marginalized populations, underprivileged groups and more.

So, while a one-off drumming event can be therapeutic; wherein, there is an emergent experience of an epiphany (catharsis or heightened awareness), an Art Therapy session (that Taal Inc. calls Art Talks) is designed with a very specific purpose or objective that would be arrived upon based on a process and measured using psychometrics. So, in a therapy-driven culture where the word could be used rather loosely, it is of utmost importance to note the prerequisites of Creative Art Therapy.

Change the Way You View Group Activities for Employees with Taal Inc.

I’m a team leader.
“How do I keep my team engaged?”
“What are the best group activities for my employees?”
“What’s going to make my group more cohesive?”
“I’m struggling to keep them motivated.”
“In my company, group morale keeps fluctuating. Weekly team meetings are getting monotonous.”
“It’s time for an outbound session. Let’s organise a team building activity for our group!”
Sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?

Browse the internet and you will find a lot of games (read: tricks / quick fixes) when you look for group activities for employees.

What we are trying to propose is a culture change; a change in the way this is concept is viewed. As you read on, you may find ways to gamify these simple pieces of information that employees may otherwise take for granted or have ‘set’ answers for. To ensure a genuine response, when activities are colored with the jovial spirit of a game, this information can come out in its most authentic form.

We enlisted some questions to help make the decision of ‘which group activity will help us best?’, in a better manner.

What is my job role in this team?
Why am I doing what I am doing?
What brings me to work everyday?
IF this company were to shut down tomorrow, how would I feel?
Where do I see myself a year from now?

Change the way of Group Activities For Employees with Taal Inc

Prima facie, these questions could not get more conventional and ‘appraisal-interview-like’ but what activity, if we indulged in, as a group, would help you elicit these answers in a genuine, non-pretentious way? The answer you get is your ‘magic carpet’.

Invariably, this activity will be something you will need to:

Do more than once. Surprise surprise! ALL group activities seem great the first time… But once the honeymoon phase is over, it’s the ones that you stick with over a period of time that will help bring about deep seeded change.
Invest time into (more than money). And we DON’T mean setting up a TT table in your office and calling it a groundbreaking trendsetter. You will have to say goodbye to 30 to 45 man-minutes of your team (within your existing work hours) for a period of 6 months, for each one to be able to be present in the same room, taking part in this activity
Call a professional for. Cutting to the chase: Drumming, music and art seem like very naturally & obviously a go-to activity for employee engagement and stress reduction (to fulfill such an objective). BUT BEWARE OF SCAMMERS. You need more than a musician or an artist for this. You need someone who has spent more than 4 to 5 years with his or her art form AND someone who has a masters or equivalent degree in Psychology (Clinical or Industrial) to be equipped to work with groups on behavioural topics. In today’s day and age there are full fledged courses in expressive arts therapy, dance movement therapy, arts based therapy, music therapy and drum circle facilitation. It’s easy for someone to stand in the centre of a drum circle and ask people to play loudly and softly but to make sure that these cues are a timely segway for a group discussion to better help emphasise the objective of the day and facilitate an epiphany, is a function of study and expertise…
Measure (not only) in numbers. Today, qualitative (psychometric) measures of activities are equipped to provide strong results to help you view behaviour change in a more tangible manner.
Have fun doing. Change happens quickly at the most unexpected times. The journey to this realisation has to be enjoyable as possible.

Be it music, drumming, visual art, creative movement or yoga based group activities, all of these points form the foundation that help us design our modules for you and your team.