Dalcroze Eurhythmics practice in México
Elda Nelly Treviño Flores (México)
A brief historical overview of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in México in the twentieth century Nearly a hundred years ago, music education practices in México began developing along philosophical lines similar to those of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and his contemporaries in Europe. Among those similarities was the concept of the ideal music educator being someone who believed in music education as a holistic education (Michaca, 1942b). In the 1930s, the National Conservatory of México in México City started a class for children focused on creativity and the development of improvisational and compositional skills. The classes, named “creación infantil” (children’s creation), were also implemented in general public schools in poor areas of the city (Sandi Meneses, 1930). By the 1940s, music teachers and researchers had begun reflecting upon the purpose and meaning of music education. Prevalent ideas at that time were those related to kinesthesia, perception through the senses which leads to an understanding defined by representation (memory, imagination), thought (judgment, action), and assimilation (attention, choice, action, and affection) (Michaca, 1942a). Furthermore, music teachers began considering the psychological needs of the person from childhood to adulthood ( Jaso López, 1942), as well as questions of nationalistic ideologies in music-making. The latter question was debated among prominent intellectuals, artists, politicians, and private industrialists during the First National Conference of Music in 1926, held at the Palacio de Minería in Mexico City (Madrid, 2008, p. 140). The specific practice of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in México may be traced to the late 1960s at the National School of Music (Escuela Nacional de Música), now the Facultad de Música at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Within the course listing of the children’s program there was a course named “Rhythmic Gymnastics”; however, no details were printed (Escuela Nacional de Música. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1967, p. 11).
Dalcroze Workshop, Conservatorio de las Rosas, 2015 As far as I know, the person who first introduced Dalcroze Eurhythmics to México is María Luisa Cortinas del Riego, a renowned music professor at UNAM and other institutions and a former student of Robert Abramson. I had the opportunity to take a music education workshop with her in 1995 at the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey. During that workshop, she applied Dalcroze principles to her teaching. She has been active for several decades, mainly in music didactics at UNAM, and gives workshops around the country. Together with professor Patricia Arenas y Barrero, they created the Bachelor of Music Education program at UNAM in 1984 and updated it in 1995 (Gómez, 2001). Throughout her teaching career, María Luisa Cortinas has been attuned to the ideas of Jaques-Dalcroze. Namely, she is in favor of an active music education which encourages the creativity of children, using improvisation, body movement within a child-centered teaching and learning process, appropriate clothing to facilitate the sessions, and, most importantly, the idea that the younger the student, the more prepared a teacher should be as an active musician with access to greater resources (Cortinas del Riego, 1992).
DALCROZE CONNECTIONS • WINTER 2021 VOL.6, NO.1 • WWW.DALCROZEUSA.ORG • LATIN AMERICAN ISSUE, PART 1 (ENGLISH)
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