(somber instrumental music) (sirens blaring) - [Man 1] You guys can check the area and see if you can (indistinct) problem area.

(indistinct radio chatter) - [Dayvin] On the basis of the data alone, Milwaukee stands out.

You can get to a place where you just believe that this is the normal and just throw your hands up and just say whatever.

It sounds cliche, but I felt compelled to do something.

I am Dayvin Hallmon, founder and music director of the Black String Triage Ensemble.

The Black String Triage Ensemble is a group of black and LatinX musicians, violin, viola, cello, upright bass that play at the scene in the immediate aftermath of tragic events.

We in Milwaukee have chosen to prioritize shootings, reckless driving occurrences, and drug overdoses so that the seed of destruction that gets planted in your mind from either what you've seen or what you've heard does not continue to play over and over and over and over, and take root and grow.

And so the music that we play, the programs I try to design, are structured in that way to help move you across that river.

(string music) - [Alida] I feel like shootings and violent situations have become such the norm that we don't honor our dead at the moment of that traumatic situation.

My name is Alida LaCosse and I am originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A night on call looks like we show up at a designated meeting place whether that's someone's house or wherever it is where we're gonna set up camp for the night - [Dayvin Hallmon] But we're together with the instrument music, music stand light, ready to go out, if an emergency occurs.

- [Alida] We watch the police calls, right?

We have a couple different formats that we watch.

We follow the call log and then we collectively make a decision when shots fired comes up if there's enough information for us to just roll out and go.

- [Dayvin] Normally, if you have to play a typical concert you know, okay, my concert is at seven o'clock I gotta be at the hall at 6:30, and you show up at 6:30, maybe you're dressed, maybe you're not, come 6:45 you're thinking about what it is that you have to play like you're getting your entire body and mind ready.

The challenge for musicians in the Black String Triage Ensemble is that you have to be in that state of being for a good four to six hour period.

(string music) - Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

This just popped up.

This one, I feel pretty confident about just blowing over there.

It's a 13 minute drive away.

North 10th Street in West Rain.

There's a lot of stuff that happens over there that's sort of, yeah, we should, we should go.

(string music) (bags being zipped) (car door slams) (indistinct chatter) (string music) - If we waited to go a day later, a week later, a month later, then what has happened has already set in for people.

(somber string music) - (Churchill) To be honest, I really don't like the reasons that we go out and play, obviously.

Initially, I go through this kind of, I don't wanna do this and I don't like what happened and I don't wanna really be there because it wrankles in my head that somebody's going.

But on the other hand music is something that I can use to help somebody else.

Then that kind of makes me feel better.

- [Alida] I would consider us to be first responders.

It feels like we're doing something actively to help because a lot of times when situations happen first responders come, yes, you know you have your EMTs, and ambulance, and fire department but once they're gone or once someone's dead, you know what's the rest of the community left to do and feel?

- [Man 2] That's powerful, man.

For real.

Who would have thunk it?

On a - [Man 2] Friday night in Milwaukee on 20th & Hopkins (string music) (indistinct chatter) - [Man 2] Music calm the soul.

(string music) This is what we call a positive distraction.

(string music) - [Alida] A lot of the music that we play, you might hear in churches, right, places of worship, but wherever we show up and we play together is a place of prayer, right?

It is an official place of worship.

It is an official place of, you know, supplication and praise and asking for peace.

We know what we're there for.

We know what our purpose is.

We just don't always know that everybody else is gonna know.

(somber string music) - [Woman 1] That is awesome, I love y'all.

(audience claps) - [Person] Why y'all doing that?

Why y'all doing that?

Why y'all doing that?

Y'all don't want to answer none.

Why y'all doing that?

Take that (indistinct) somewhere!

- [Woman 3] Why would you come over here like that?

- [Person] All over the place I don't wanna hear that!

- [Woman 4] Excuse me.

- [Person] I don't wanna hear that.

I don't want to hear it.

You should be the (indistinct) - [Woman 4] No man.

- [Person] Your daddy got killed.

I don't give a (indistinct) what you're talking about.

(instrument tunes) [Ensemble Member] You need anything?

[Ensemble Member] You good?

[Community Member] Y'all do this everywhere y'all go?

[Community Member] We don't need no music man - [Ensemble Member] Can we just do this one and go?

- [Dayvin] Is that what everybody's feeling?

- [Ensemble Member] I think with the amount of noise that has recently just shot up I'm feeling a little bit, uncomfortable.

- [Dayvin] No, my bowing technique is not so I know my focus is, - [Dayvin] Um, yeah let's do this and then let's probably get (somber string music) (indistinct chatter) - [Alida] I think the thing that strings us together is our passion for music, but it's not just that.

It is also, I think it's our love of our people.

I think we love out loud through our music and I think that's what makes us unique.

- [Dayvin] My hope for the Black String Triage ensemble in the immediate, is that the people in that space will come away feeling unburdened and like a different reality is possible.

That what has happened does not have to be the every day nor should it.

The nature for those of us as people of color in the United States is we don't just get to acceptance.

Acceptance is not enough.

There must be something that convinces you.

There must be something that lights a fire to drive you to tell you that it is going to be better.

The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.

So you don't know.

You can't rationally prove it.

You can't scientifically measure it out but something has spoken to you and pushed you beyond all rationality so that you know this will be better.

And the only thing that that does that is faith.

In whatever, however, it is still faith.

(somber string music)