Dalcroze Eurhythmies

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 9 (Supplement)

Dalcroze Eurhythmies

T>Y some the Dalcroze system is i 1 viewed as a form of physical train- | 1 ing, by others as a new form of danc- | 1 ing, by others again as a new musical , 1 training, while some think of it 1 vaguely as containing a liberal education in itself. Few people are 1 clear as to its real nature and pur i pose. I The founder, Emile Jacques-Dal i croze, a Swiss by birth, was for some ’ time musical director in Algiers. Re- 1 turning to Geneva he became an active writer, teacher and composer and later was made Professor of Har- ’ mony and Composition at the Con servatoire. He saw that the surest means of attaining a true and lasting understanding of rhythm was to 1 feel it through the body. Those who are acquainted with psychology 1 will realise how fully this is in accordance with modern views. Especially when he turned his attention to the training of young children 1 did he realise that to make use of bodily movement was to use the child’s instinctive delight in activity. It is well recognised the rhythm is a factor in every art and indeed in all life, and it is certain that this training has a more far-reaching effect than only in the realm of music. M. Dalcroze recognises -thoroughly the need for Expression as well as IMpression. His is not a system which calls for merely passive receptivity. And further, the child’s creative powers, as well as his interpretative powers are evoked from the beginning. One may perhaps divide the exercises into two groups, the first being those which develop control and the second those which enable the student to present musical rhythm by bodily movements. Everyone will agree that such control is necessary in order that the

body may become a perfect instrument for expression. There must be independence of limbs and yet a harmonious and co-ordinated movement of the whole body. As regards the second group of exercises, arm movements are used to represent time, foot movements to express note values, and other movements to express as many shades and varieties of phrasing in music as lend themselves to this mode of expression In learning to understand music . lirough movement, M. Daicroze found that the movement itself might be wonderfully beautiful, and he realised that a new art might arise in which movement and music are one, neither complete without the other. It will be seen that this teaching has a direct bearing on the art of the theatre, especially in opera as imagined by Wagner. Here as in the rhythmic exercise, a grammar cf movement has to be learned, and the free interpretation of music by bodily movement lias naturally grown out of the more formal rhythmic exercises already mentioned, and depends on them for its foundation. This working out of music by movements of the whole body differs from ordinary dancing in the fact that the relationship between the music and the movement is far more intimate and essential. In mpst dancing the music is merely an accompaniment and the connection is of the slightest. It is probably true to say that to those who have actually been trained, even partially, iu Eurhythmies, an entirely new experience of delight and refreshment has come, and though enjoyment is not the ultimate test of educational value, if we have decided that the end is worth attaining, then we may be tt-uly grateful if the means prove to be instrumental of real and intense joy.