A Look at Dalcroze Pedagogy through the Works of Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo
Iliana Vindas Chaves (Costa Rica)
Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo: Pedagogue and Composer Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo was born in San José, Costa Rica, in 1949. She is the daughter of the distinguished musician and pianist Carlos Enrique Vargas Méndez and the illustrious educator María Eugenia Dengo Obregón. At six years old, she received her first piano lessons from her father. Education has been the guiding star of her life. She graduated from the University of Costa Rica as a primary education teacher with a bachelor’s of preschool education and bachelor of educational administration. She participated in the Central American Pilot Course on Music Education in 1971, which was a one-month intensive workshop on music education topics. This pilot course was directed by Dr. Ma. Luisa Muñoz from Puerto Rico and Cecilia Cabezas from Costa Rica and held at the National Conservatory of Music in Nicaragua, with fifty-four participants from Panamá, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. Among the faculty was Patricia Stokoe, an important Argentinian pedagogue (born from English parents) who developed the constructs of BodyExpression-Dance1 and sensory perception.
Pictures from the Central American Pilot Music Education Course in 1971.
Ana Isabel Vargas Dengo 1
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The method developed by Stokoe was influenced by the ideas of Isadora Duncan, Moshé Feldenkrais, Rudolf Von Laban, and Jaques-Dalcroze. Her method aimed for the search of movement with personal meaning. (Stokoe & Harf, 1992, 13-16)
Ana Isabel Vargas also studied at the Interamerican Institute of Music Education INTEM-University of Chile-OAS (Organization of American States) in 1973, together with twenty teachers from other Latin American countries. This program was possible through an agreement between the OAS and the University of Chile. The program, begun in 1967, was addressed to music teachers from Latin America. The majority of the participants studied there for one year only; however, a few were selected to study for a second year. Among those were Iramar Rodrigues from Brazil and Isidro Pardo from Colombia.
DALCROZE CONNECTIONS • SPRING 2022 VOL.6, NO.2 • WWW.DALCROZEUSA.ORG • LATIN AMERICAN ISSUE, PART 2 (ENGLISH)
