Music for mothers and babies living in a prison: A report on a special production of BebBab

BbBb is a project that combines education and artistic performance in a process that is centred on music, babies and their parents. We discovered that previous productions resulted in a very strong bonding among parents and babies, families and the community. In 2008 we implemented a special production in a prison in Oporto where mothers live with their own children until the age of four. Here we describe the ideas, goals and strategies of the project, we look at its artistic aspects and we report the impact it had on the participants, based on interviews conducted after the project was concluded. The report of this practical work is integrated in a reflection about the general issue of music in prison, and we explain why we believe BebBab can be a case study helping to establish guidelines for future work, particularly in the case of imprisoned mothers and babies.