DALCROZE
Connections
DALCROZE
IN THIS ISSUE
Connections
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FEATURES
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CONVERSATION WITH FABIAN BAUTZ BY MICHAEL JOVIALA
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BOOK REVIEW: KIDS, MUSIC ‘N’ AUTISM, BRINGING OUT THE MUSIC IN YOUR CHILD BY DORITA S. BERGER BY PATRICK CERRIA 22
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DEPARTMENTS
Managing Editor
Michael Joviala / editor@dalcrozeusa.org Associate Editor
EDITOR’S NOTE
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Amanda Stout / astoutdesigns@gmail.com [Cover Photo provided by David Tucker Cover Design by Melissa Neely] Special thanks to Emily Raively for editorial guidance.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
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CALL FOR PROPOSALS
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The Dalcroze Society of America (DSA) publishes Dalcroze Connections to inform, inspire and educate its members. Published twice per year (Fall and Spring), the magazine seeks articles, essays and letters by DSA members of varying lengths that pertain to the history, study, practice or teaching of the Method Jaques-Dalcroze and related disciplines. Submissions are accepted on an ongoing basis and may be edited for content and length. While timely submission of articles may allow for consultation with contributors, the editor reserves the right of final editorial decisions.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR CERTIFICATE 30 PROGRAMS
Aaron Butler
Journal Design
REFLECTIONS: A PATH OF DISCOVERY BY ANDREA CLEMENS
Articles should be submitted electronically to Michael Joviala (editor@dalcrozeusa.org). Submissions to Dalcroze Connections should be no longer than 2500 words. Contributors are encouraged to submit related photographs and images. Scholarly authors are referred to the The Journal of Dalcroze Studies, the DSA’s refereed (peer reviewed) journal, published once per year. For more information, email editor@dalcrozeusa.org. The views expressed in Dalcroze Connections do not necessarily represent those of the Dalcroze Society of America. 2
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Improvisation: The Musical Mind Embodied
MICHAEL JOVIALA
EDITOR’S NOTE
[PHOTO CREDIT: NILSA LASALLE]
40 YEARS OF THE AMERICAN DALCROZE JOURNAL It’s humbling to see what our predecessors accomplished with the limited means they had available to them, especially as compared to what we now have at our disposal, what with conference calling, “Skype,” the Internet, etc. No doubt each step in the publication process took longer, with phone calls and “snail mail” instead of e mail. Taken together, the DSA Newsletters and past issues of the American Dalcroze Journal form a repository of the member’s efforts to sustain the Dalcroze practice in the USA and contribute to its ongoing presence in the world. A key feature of the new website will be a digital archive of complete issues, so members can reflect back on the organization’s history, and historians can piece together the story of how we got to where we are today, thanks to all who have come before us! Enjoy these looks back at the history of The American Dalcroze Journal, beginning with a few rounds by Gilbert De Benedetto from the fall of 1981.
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The American Dalcroze Journal:
A Look Back
The American Dalcroze Journal:
A Look Back 6
The American Dalcroze Journal:
A Look Back
The American Dalcroze Journal:
A Look Back 8
THE DALCROZE SCHOOL LUCY MOSES SCHOOL
The Dalcroze School at Lucy Moses School offers a unique and comprehensive musical training. Eurhythmics, the study of rhythm; SolfÊge, ear training and musical literacy; and Improvisation, spontaneous musical expression at the piano; are offered in Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced levels during fall, spring, and summer terms. Lucy Moses School’s Birnbaum Music Library offers a large collection of Dalcroze materials. Lucy Moses School has one of the largest Dalcroze teacher training programs in the country. Classes can lead to Dalcroze certification at the Certificate and License levels. Accredited by the Dalcroze Society of America Faculty: Michael Joviala Cynthia Lilley Leslie Upchurch Anne Farber
To register: 212 501 3360 lucymosesschool@kaufmanmusiccenter.org KaufmanMusicCenter.org/LMS
"I've learned how to create a musical environment - for myself and my students." - Dalcroze Pedagogy Student "It was a great experience for me! My body became my instrument." - Dalcroze Summer Intensive Student
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE In 2018 we mark a historic milestone in the life of the Dalcroze Society of America. This January we celebrate our 40th anniversary as a nonprofit corporation. The proof? A copy of the original application Brunhilde Dorsch, Marta Sanchez, and Jean Wilmouth, Jr. filed in Pittsburgh PA for 501 (c) (3) status. Inspired by this momentous discovery, I dug back into newsletters from the DSA’s very first years, long before we started publishing online newsletters or Dalcroze Connections, back before the first publication of the American Dalcroze Journal in 1980. This research was made possible by one of our earliest DSA Presidents, Julia Schnebly-Black, who donated her nearly complete collection of DSA publications to the national Board last year so we can digitize and archive it on our soon-tobe redesigned website. Compliments of Julia, this issue of Dalcroze Connections features a forty-year retrospective sampling of facsimiles from the pages of these publications (see pages 4-8). From these precious documents it’s clear that, even before the DSA’s official roll out as a tax exempt entity its founding members had already been working together, conducting activities dedicated to the purposes the DSA continues to fulfill: gathering and sharing information about the teaching practice and philosophy of education that bears Emile Jaques-Dalcroze’s name, leading and publicizing Dalcroze workshops across this country’s vast expanse, helping to sponsor students’ training as Dalcroze teachers, and mounting a national conference. It was with the DSA’s formal incorporation, however, that these first members established the legal and financial basis for the organization’s various ongoing activities, providing the means for its continuity to the present. And so we mark our origin from that decisive moment in January 1978. The news of our four decades of shared history brings to mind the observation that “life begins at forty.” And it must be so: for we’re on the verge of several new ventures; and the DSA is entering a time of rebirth and renewal. Take our National Conference. In a marked departure from our longstanding tradition, we will hold this biennial event on the first weekend of the New Year, rather than at the start of the summer. Thanks to another former DSA President, Dr. Stephen Moore, the music department of California State University at Dominguez Hills, just outside of Los Angeles, will host this event. At this gathering we will recognize Lisa Parker’s lifetime contribution to our practice and community. Built around the theme Improvisation: The Musical Mind Embodied, the conference promises to offer a rich exploration of the generative impulse that lies at the heart of our pedagogical method. As of the publication date of this issue of Dalcroze Connections there’s still time for you to submit a proposal for a presentation, a workshop, or a class on some topic related to the theme (see the call for proposals, on pages 20-21). But you’ll have to act quickly: the deadline is September 15! You’ll want to put that date into your calendar for another reason: that weekend we will assemble near the site of our founding to launch a year-long birthday celebration with the Dalcroze Summit At: Slippery Rock University. We’ve designed this event with two distinct purposes in mind: first, it will give our more advanced practitioners an opportunity to pursue training in a particular kind of teaching: leading introductory Dalcroze workshops. Those who qualify for this residency may then become eligible for the Dalcroze Leadership Initiative, a program we’re rolling out that weekend to enable us to meet the growing demand for adult Dalcroze Ed. If you’re interested in taking part in this initiative, or learning more about it, please let us know. We need more qualified workshop leaders to go out and enlist others in this remarkable teaching approach.
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BILL BAUER [PHOTO CREDIT: DAVID TUCKER]
Second, and consistent with this intention, we’ve embedded a day-long introductory workshop in this event to spark interest in Dalcroze Education among music educators, therapists, and students in the Three-Rivers area who have had little exposure to our work. We will seize the special opportunity this weekend affords us to celebrate Annabelle Joseph’s lifetime contribution to Dalcroze Education. So I hope to see you there!1 September 15 also marks the beginning of our Forty in Forty friend-raising campaign. With this project, we hope to bring forty friends, new or former, into the DSA in the forty-week period starting on that day and ending on June 21 2018. To reach this goal, we’re asking all of our members to join us in hosting a significantly greater number of introductory workshops across the United States, both in local chapters and also in smaller clusters of members in places where we have yet to form a chapter. To make this increased activity possible, our able Administrator Alex Marthaler has created an online resource called Promoting Dalcroze, featured in a set of web pages on our website at DalcrozeUSA.org. For any who feel daunted at the prospect of mounting such a bold venture, let us walk you through the steps and show you that, once you get the hang of it, hosting an introductory workshop is really quite do-able! Offering another sign of regeneration, the DSA is working closely with the various Dalcroze teacher training programs in the USA to expand opportunities for further study at more advanced levels. And owing to the work of the DSA’s Professional Development Committee (PDC) our professional community has more options. Made up of Dalcroze teacher training program directors and faculty, the PDC has mapped out the pathway to Dalcroze Certificate teacher training followed by all accredited “T2” programs (i.e. Teacher Training programs), including two new programs directed by Dalcroze Licentiates. We hope that such a high level of participation will make it possible for members to pursue ongoing Dalcroze teacher training throughout the year, rather than just during the summer. Indeed, with the newly revised Dalcroze Certificate-level training manual (posted in PDF on the DSA website), which effectively standardizes the Certificate level of training, the PDC has revolutionized Dalcroze teacher training in the USA. The License-level training manual is currently in the works. On another front, Editor Michael Joviala has been working indefatigably to develop a new scholarly publication, Dalcroze Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, that will serve as the premiere forum for research that is relevant to the theory and practice of Dalcroze Education. In the first week of August he hosted a roundtable discussion at the Third International Conference for Dalcroze Studies at Laval University in Quebec City. Michael invited scholars from around the world to envision what such a publication will look like and enlisted their ongoing participation in its inception and publication as members of the journal’s review board. From organizing this symposium he learned that, among our extended family in the global community of Dalcroze practitioners and scholars there are many international stakeholders in this newly emerging discipline. Several served on this roundtable’s panel; others took part in the session as interested audience members. Their positive input bodes well for the journal’s future prospects. 1 It’s possible to register for this special dinner the DSA is hosting on Annabelle’s behalf without attending the workshop or the summit, but you’ll have to register asap. The deadline’s 9/9! Use these links to get to the online registration website: https://www.regonline.com/honoringannabellejoseph https://www.regonline.com/registration/Checkin.aspx?EventID=2031033
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With regard to governance, we’re currently updating our national Bylaws and creating a template for chapter Bylaws so those who would like to charter a chapter in their area have what they need to get started. Furthermore, we’ve developed alternatives to chapters called DSA “divisions” that are answerable directly to the national Board, from which they receive financial support for their operations. Through these and other means, we hope to further build our professional network and the greater Dalcroze community. Finally, the Board has created the position of Executive Director (technically, we’ve re-created this role, which founding member Jean Wilmouth, Jr. filled in the DSA’s first years of existence), and it will conduct a search in the fall to find the best candidate for the job. Regarding scholarships, the Scholarship Task Force, chaired by Mary DobreaGrindahl, has increased the size and number that it offers to deserving candidates. This year the DSA offered each of six applicants up to 20 percent of the tuition they needed to pursue Dalcroze teacher training at accredited Dalcroze teacher training programs, helping to reduce the cost for such study. We hope to offer even more, and more amply funded scholarships in the future. The DSA welcomes your volunteer participation and we hope you’ll get in touch with us, whether you foresee joining our newly expanded board of eleven (we’re actually one Trustee short at the moment), or would rather work on some well-defined smallscale short-term projects and see them to the end. Please reach out to the Chair of our Governance Committee, Jessica Schaeffer to find out how you can get involved. From these new ventures it’s clear that the DSA is eager to serve our members ever more effectively. And judging from our 2017 Membership Survey, it’s clear that several DSA members would agree with the classic vote of confidence from Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine”: “Don’t change a hair for me; not if you care for me.” “I love it already!” wrote one member. “It’s already doing an awesome job!” wrote another. Others echoed this sentiment, offering reasons why they share it: “I am very aware of the importance of DSA and the service being provided by its officers. Keep up the good work.” One member got even more specific, urging us to “continue to publish great journals!” Yet another urged us to “stay alive!” adding, “it’s a long road...” After forty years, we can feel proud that we have stayed alive and traveled this long and winding road together. We always welcome member feedback, and especially such enthusiastic responses to our efforts as these and other members have provided. If you harbor similar sentiments, feel free to share them with any members of the DSA Board of Trustees with whom you’re in touch: Vice-President Jeremy Dittus, Treasurer Anthony Molinaro, Secretary Eunjin Lee, Editor Michael Joviala, and standing members and committee chairs Jessica Schaeffer, Eiko Ishizuka, Mary Dobrea-Grindahl, Cassandra Eisenreich, and Paula Zerkle, or Alex Marthaler (at Admin@DalcrozeUSA.org). Or, of course, with yours truly, Bill Bauer President, Dalcroze Society of America
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Dalcroze Journal 2017_Layout 1 7/20/2017 2:40 PM Page 1
The Dalcroze Program at Diller-Quaile 2017-2018 DALCROZE CERTIFICATION OPPORTUNITIES Teacher Training Faculty: Ruth Alperson, Michael Joviala, and Cynthia Lilley CORE SUBJECTS: EURHYTHMICS, SOLFÈGE, IMPROVISATION Two Levels of Classes for Adults: Beginner; Intermediate DALCROZE METHODOLOGY: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES Includes observation of Dalcroze Eurhythmics classes for children and practice teaching DALCROZE CLASSES FOR STUDENTS FROM PRE-K THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL Approved for Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) hours with the New York State Education Department Teacher training classes have been evaluated and recommended for college credit by the University of the State of New York, New York State Board of Regents National College Credit Recommendation Service (National CCRS). Visit www.diller-quaile.org for information about 2017-2018 courses.
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The Diller-Quaile School of Music | 24 East 95th Street | New York, NY 10128 212-369-1484 | www.diller-quaile.org Accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community & Precollegiate Arts Schools
BY MICHAEL JOVIALA [PHOTO CREDIT: NILSA LASALLE]
CONVERSATION WITH FABIAN BAUTZ Michael: I been thinking a lot lately about the idea of discovery, the different levels of discovery that can happen inside a classroom, and the conditions that promote the chance that there will be discovery. You can’t guarantee that it will happen. Fabian: No, you can’t. M: And yet it is one of our core values. I’ve been thinking about the different kinds of discovery. There is the kind of discovery in which the teacher knows something that they want the students to discover. But there is another level of discovery in which both teacher and student are in the process of discovering something. Staying in that space is challenging and can feel risky. But I think it is valuable, and that is the space I am particularly interested in at the moment. F: I am immediately reminded of a class that I am now teaching. And when you said ‘discovery’ I was just remembering that moment when they were moving in the space. And this is a very unmotivated class. M: What age? F: 23. They have chosen these studies, but one would like to be more in acting, another would like more to perform. They want to be there but they are unmotivated to enter the atmosphere of the eurhythmics class, to be serious about what is going on. Discovery is very much a part of that atmosphere. Their disengagement begins with not caring about what kind of footwear they have, either barefoot or something that prevents you from slipping. M: How did you work with this? F: They have a very good teacher for movement. I spoke with her and I realized how good she must be, and so I asked them to connect their work with her to our class in hopes of bringing in a little bit of the body presence that is necessary. In March of 2017, Fabian Bautz was the featured presenter at the annual Tri-Chapter Workshop for the Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff societies of the New York City area. I first met Fabian at the Longy School of Music’s Dalcroze Summer Intensive in 2007. Based in Zurich, Fabian teaches both Dalcroze Eurhythmics and TaKeTiNa, a movement-based approach to experiencing rhythm. The day after the workshop, I invited Fabian to my home in Brooklyn for an interview. We spent an hour walking in the cold March sunshine, and as we talked I asked him— more than once—to stop and “save it for the interview.” I didn’t want to waste any interesting conversation threads! I needn’t have worried. Fabian brings the same qualities that he teaches with to conversation: a probing intellect, deep awareness and a focused presence. As we thawed out over tea, there was plenty more to talk about. Here is our conversation…
M: There can be a certain delicate self-consciousness in young adults. F: My colleague encountered great resistance from them because she focused too much on the personal challenge of taking it seriously, to really think about the holistic aspect of self-experience, self-development, self-presence and self-consciousness that can be catalyzed by the combination of bodywork and eurhythmics, trying to integrate both music and movement and nourishing yourself. Musically, physically becoming more yourself through the music, through the movement, through what the two together can bring out of you. M: You really have to work to inspire them to say ‘yes’ to that.
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F: And back to this question of discovery: in this lesson, they must challenge themselves to use their body. They have chosen Music and Movement as a course of study, and I have to insist that they really experience the movement. In an earlier class I worked with the song “What a Wonderful World”. There are some very long notes in some of the phrases. I tried to force them—that’s not such a nice word—invite, seduce them to experience this long, long note. It’s moving and it is a movement. Music, sound and movement: one sound, one tone that starts here and is going there.
But there is also the social aspect. You are not alone. There’s your partner, there’s a group. There’s a horizontal line of interaction, and a vertical line between your brain and your physical ability. And there is a third point where we meet. You are in your process of discovering, developing, trying, and so am I, as a teacher. Then something can happen! She called it der dritte Ort, the third place, and it’s unpredictable. You cannot force it. But it can happen if we create optimal conditions. If I give my best. If you give your best. And someone may not, but suddenly he is, and then we have a gestalt of beauty, of beautiful proportions between the polarities of strong and tender, small and big, soft and loud. Something suddenly has been created.
M: There is a whole list of verbs for that, right? Invite, cajole, tease, badger, insist. It’s a constant chipping away at resistance. Good cop, bad cop, all in one.
M: A lot of our work as teachers and as alert students is to watch for that and not let it slip away. It’s very easy to let it slip through your fingers, especially when you stop following a plan.
F: Yes! To make it possible for another person or for a group we determine precisely what the exercise could offer and how the students could come to a discovery. I think they can if we try again and again to get them to the point where something is happening: Wow, the music is carrying me!
F: Yes. You have to be very alert and you have to want it. And you have to see what is possible and to what degree. Sometimes we have to be content with something less than we might have hoped for. It won’t be the big event or the big discovery, but rather something small and more individual.
M: Everybody knows when something is happening. And everybody knows when it isn’t. F: Right.
M: Yes. If we are lucky enough to have the space at least sometimes in which there are no expectations about what should happen. Not that expectations are antithetical to Dalcroze practice. It’s just that sometimes we need to let them go. But often we are teaching in places that maybe aren’t fully Dalcroze environments, where we have a list of things we are supposed to teach. A laundry list, you know? And there might be less room for that type of exploration. It can still happen, but it may be more difficult to achieve. The longer I do this work, I am discovering that it is less about music, and more about me. I am still discovering my body, my attitudes towards my physical self, how my mind and body talk to each other. All these things that are important for music but are not necessarily about quarter-notes and eighth-notes, unequal beats, and so on. All these musical elements are interesting, but I often find that I am using music as a means to discover my own body, my own self. It’s almost as if I am attempting to acquire these musical abilities so that I can encounter these parts of myself. It’s a little backwards! At this point, I’m not learning music through movement as much as I’m learning movement through music. I’m not naturally a mover. At 50 years-old I’m still learning how to inhabit my body. That’s probably what draws me into music. You have to inhabit your body to really be present in music. So for me the discoveries continue, but at least right now they are mostly intra-personal.
M: And we can’t insist that something happen. It just has to… happen. F: This aspect of whether something is happening or not is connected to discovery. For me the quality of a discovery actually is that “something” happened. M: Yes. Something happened that we didn’t necessarily expect. Yet you can only discover something that was already there. You can invent something that wasn’t there as a result of a discovery, though. And many of the moments of eurhythmics classes that have stayed with me, while I don’t remember exactly what we were doing, I do remember the experience of everyone realizing that the thing we all thought we were doing is not actually what we were doing. Something totally different is happening. We all recognize that it is happening, though, even if we maybe can’t even exactly name it. F: My teacher had a name for that. Her name was Amélie Hoellering and she had studied with Elfriede Feudel , who was one of the early pupils of Dalcroze. She founded the eurhythmics institute called “Rhythmikon,” where I did my studies. I chose to study eurhythmics because of five days of ‘discovery’ in my initial encounter with it. I had read about it, but I had never experienced it. I discovered a lot of things during these five days: things that had been in me, things that fulfilled some wishes and hopes. I was longing for a lot of things at that time. I was 23 or 22. I was curious about theater, music, and movement. I had done some music studies but I didn’t want to become an instrumentalist. So I go to this place and it must have happened on the first day. There was a discovery in the work that she offered us. She called this “the third place”. She talked about creating a eurhythmics lesson. The teacher creates the conditions in which a person has to choose from the available physical or intellectual possibilities to realize something.
F: Right. Maybe a 23-year-old student is not likely to be so curious about themselves in that way. M: No way I would have been! Although I do think the right teacher could have opened the door to that. F: As for me at 23, I realized in this initial week of Dalcroze that there were things that neither my parents, nor my kindergarten or primary school teachers, not my high school, not my first experiences with psychological studies, nothing had ever touched certain things about my self and my expressivity.
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M: You knew that at 23?
F: I met Reinhard Flatischler in a loft workshop with maybe 8 people. One of my student colleagues invited me. And in that first evening with TaKeTiNa I did polyrhythms for the first time in a way that I had never done before with Amélie Hoellering or during my studies at the conservatory.
F: Yes, I felt that. And that happened in the eurhythmics lessons. I realized that this lady had opened the space for me to act in a new way which had to do with making clear decisions about yes or no, about whether ‘yes’ meant forward or backward, slow or quick, with her or against her, twice or once, double-time—and here we are in notation! Not that we need notation, it’s just happening! What is she playing? What is the atmosphere in the room? It’s transmitted in the music so that I move in a certain way. The music pulled out of me a certain kind of expressivity that I wouldn’t use in my daily life because I was a very socialized person. Don’t do anything brave or extraordinary! Eurhythmics showed me that it was ok in this frame, this secure, protected space of learning and teaching, I can develop new tools and skills, new possibilities of self, just as you said. I am like you – thirteen years older, but it is still an ongoing process to inhabit my body more.
M: What’s the difference? F: The biggest difference is that it is a repetitive process. M: Groove-based. F: Completely groove-based, and very joyful. A lot of fun. M: You’re not contrasting that with eurhythmics, in terms of joy, are you?
M: Still it is remarkable that you were able to recognize that in your twenties.
F: No, no. Eurhythmics was very often joyful and fun, too. In eurhythmics, there is much more variety of movement and you have contact with others. You change partners. How will I do this exercise with this person?
F: Yes. I felt that something was missing.
M: It’s very inter-personal.
M: For me just going into music itself felt risky. I didn’t stumble into a Dalcroze class until fifteen years after my schooling.
F: Yes, and TaKeTiNa is not. Or I should say was not. Reinhard Flatischler has also learned something over the last 40 years and he has adapted some exercises, but basically it was not inter-personal. It was individuals working on themselves in a group. And while we were doing TaKeTiNa I realized, “Wow! I’m doing polyrhythms with my whole body.” I had already studied for 3 years at the Conservatory and nobody gave me the key to experience that. How is that possible? There was a wonderful drum teacher who used the Orff instruments. We performed many pieces, but to do two and three with my body and to sing at the same time, to lose contact with the drum or the singing and to find my way back to it, that was incredible! There was another path. Completely effective and connected to African and Asian culture, the old drum and dance cultures such as India, which uses polyrhythms and teaches through language and syllables rather than through notation.
F: Maybe I was such an adaptive child, eager to fulfill the rules and meet expectations in my movements. But actually living is moving, after all. Eurhythmics was a door opener, or at least the first of many keys. M: Well, sometimes in a eurhythmics class we are sort of like trained animals, responding to this and that. It can be great fun, but it’s not wild liberated free movement for the most part. F: My teacher was not one of those. She was in a big discussion with Geneva and with Marie-Laurie Bachmann. But she got a lot of respect and an Honorary Degree from the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, although they knew that she was coming from deep psychology, and that she was using this inter-personal aspect a lot in her lessons. It was about life, expressivity, and yes, coordination, too, but not exclusively. Our goal was to express ourselves, to find ourselves, to become more ourselves.
M: Some believe that Jaques-Dalcroze picked that up when he went to Algeria as a young man. F: Could be.
M: This leads us to the idea of complexity, how it can be used to bypass some controls we might have. It’s a kind of paradox. By entering that complexity, you have to let go of control.
M: But the idea was expressed in a different way through him. It isn’t groove-based. The music is constantly moving forward. It’s going somewhere.
F: Yes! That was the second door for me—TaKeTiNa. That was complete complexity.
F: Yes. And you have to constantly make decisions. Where do I do my next step, my next clap?
M: When did you encounter that in relation to Dalcroze?
M: The reflective mind is highly involved.
F: That’s an important question. I had not yet finished my studies, and there was a big conflict.
F: Yes, it is awake. It is included, involved and always present, whereas in TaKeTiNa you can have your own trip for as long as you want. Today, I have my own critical take on that. It depends
M: What was the conflict?
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on how you guide the process. Reinhard used something very effective: the principle of call and response. Responding to a difficult call might push you out of the groove, and that’s the moment where you are awake again. So you must reconnect with your mind because you might have drifted away. Suddenly there is a call and the whole ship is sinking! You have to return to the center, to the rhythm and the beat.
M: I wonder since trance and electronic music has become so popular with young people involved in these long all-night sessions where they are basically bypassing their conscious minds through movement and stimulation through sound and light and often drugs, too, I wonder if TaKeTiNa would seem not so unusual, maybe even tame? F: I don’t know about that kind of music. TaKeTiNa is a challenge and you must be interested in something about yourself. It asks you how your body is functioning with your conscious mind. How come if I want to clap in this particular place or time, I miss completely? That was my own question after my first experience with TaKeTiNa set in the workshop. Reinhard, the teacher, was doing different steps in front of me and I was losing my own steps or claps!
M: It’s as if you need the reflective mind to get back on the bicycle, and once you are moving again the director can recede to the background and put his feet up again. In Dalcroze we don’t usually want that to happen too much. F: Even as a TaKaTina teacher you have to stay completely alert. You must see whether too many people are out of rhythm, or maybe it needs a provocation, something to intensify the process. Or maybe the challenge level needs to be reduced.
M: That happens in eurhythmics classes, too! F: Yes! Both require curiosity about ourselves and how we function. You might have had the opportunity to discover that things can happen without conscious control. Here I am doing two against three, to take the simplest example, I can sing and move at the same time but I’ve never done it before.
M: Like a Dalcroze teacher, really. F: True. But the focus is on something else. The tools that you use are different because you are groove-based. You can’t push the button and say, “Ok, we’ll stop it here.” It’s a very sensitive process, a performance really. You can’t just say, “Oh, sorry, I want to do this measure again.”
M: And I can’t tell you how I am doing it. F: Right!
M: It’s like waking someone out of hypnosis.
M: There are so many things we do like that. Simply standing up is a complex process. There are so many things that must happen so that we don’t fall over, constant micro-adjustments. No one can say exactly what they are doing to make that happen. That’s something I love about both TaKeTiNa and eurhythmics. They give us an experience of complexity that we can really feel. We say, “I don’t know how I can do that, I just give myself the instruction to do it—and I can do it.” Everything else we take for granted. I can pick up this cup. No problem! But how? It turns out that is a difficult thing for even scientists to explain. In this day and age they are still arguing about how that is possible.
F: You can’t interrupt the process, whereas in eurhythmics you can. And I like both. They are both very effective and good. Amélie Hoellering noticed a change when I came back to her institute after I had taken the TaKeTiNa course. One of my student colleagues had encouraged me to return there, at Rhythmikon, to become a eurhythmics teacher. And because I was full of TaKeTiNa, I could not resist introducing it, too. Or—which was worse—to mix it in a little bit. So in the beginning, when I had the opportunity to give a class on my own and I did TaKeTiNa for a while. I thought, “Wow, I have a super new skill which is complementary to eurhythmics.” Amélie Hoellering would look at the students coming out of the lesson and ask, “What did you do with them?” [laughter] They looked like they were in a trance, which is what happens if you take them through the process and you don’t get them back with a round of reflection: what did you do? how was the experience? how was it falling in and out?
F: So you are back to your first question about how this can become a discovery. If we do it with our students, or with children, how can everything become a discovery again and again, the same thing? M: Especially when you see students encountering the same material, how can it be discovery for those who teach it?
M: Yes, you’ve done that every time I’ve been in a session with you.
M: You may be tired.
F: In a class last week, I came into the room and there was one student standing on one of our big wooden boxes. He had a great spot to observe everything. And so the lesson starts like that. Whoever steps on the box stops the music, or whoever steps on the box makes a gesture and we do the same, and so on. The movie starts! To use it rather than saying, “Ok, put the box away and then we can start.” To me that is also discovery.
F: Yes, but you are completely present because you have talked about what you have done. In TaKeTiNa people don’t know if they have done 3 with 5, 6 with 9.
M: Yes, in that case you all are really discovering the lesson. Though I’m often uncomfortable with the word ‘lesson.’ It often implies that I always know what I will teach, and that I always know what you will
F: When I was just starting out I did not do that yet so clearly. So she saw students coming out differently from the way they came out from a eurhythmics lesson. After a eurhythmics lesson you are aware and awake.
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learn. Here is what the outcome should be. Now, get off that box so we can begin. The entry-point as portal to discovery is important for artists of any type. When you sit down to the blank page—it’s blank. We have to start, and we have to learn how to start. We must learn to discover what’s there, maybe in the process discovering ourselves through what’s there—or not there. The lessons don’t come pre-packaged. The teacher is not reading a step-by-step manual. The teacher is the authority, but I am always happiest when the authority is shared. The teacher is a guide, an observer, a facilitator, and all the other things a teacher must be. And when he needs to be, yes – an authority. But there are more possibilities.
had to develop more clarity about that. I can say though that in a way I also succeed because my sympathy and love for them is always there, and they know it. They know that if I am at the point of saying, “No,” it is a ‘no,’ but they know it is not against them. We will meet two minutes later and they will have the freedom to play, and I will give them a contributing role. I had to learn that I can be the friendly supportive person even if I am straight and strong in my denial of something. M: They need limits. F: I had to discover that I had the freedom to have a definite and final “no” to a child, and that “no” means “no” for now in this moment. The “no” is clear and sharp, and it works. I didn’t dare that for decades. I was afraid to. It didn’t fit with my image of myself of always being a friendly person.
F: I remember that very well from your class the summer before, this atmosphere of competence and experience, but that you are helping us to create something together.
M: I have a similar temperament, though I yelled in the beginning. Now I just say “no” whenever it’s necessary.
M: I might be obsessed with that because of what I see as the failure of our public—and often private—education to provide that for children. There is a mandate to “know” and deliver an outcome. It is no surprise that we fail.
F: Right. If it is clear for you it is enough. You don’t have to yell. It is the eyes and the voice.
F: And it is difficult to have a concept of other free forms of learning and teaching. Even if you have this idea and you work within a system that is programmed in a different way, it is very difficult to open that free space for the children.
M: And the feeling. I think that you earn that “no” by giving as much “yes” as you can constantly, so that the second that “no” comes, they can feel it. They are desperate for “yes.” They just want to know that they are free. They want to be able to trust you, so that if there is a “no,” it is for a good reason. It’s for my safety, or something. He says “yes” to so many other things, so, Ok.
M: Yes, it is very difficult. I have enormous respect for teachers who find a way to solve that problem while from inside the system. Somebody has to do it. I couldn’t!
F: To have developed that for so many years, I can say that I now have that forever. There might be situations where I see a conflict with a particular child. The next step is to contact the teacher or parent to get more information about the child, and to fine tune what consequences there are if a child is permanently destroying the flow of the teaching. Maybe I can give her something to do in another room. There’s a door, and you can knock and come back. Or I’ll bring you back when I think it is enough. Very often it is a question about the parents.
F: No! I couldn’t do it 5 days a week. I do it one morning a week. M: I’ve chosen not to accept work in which I have to compromise like that. That’s a weakness of mine, in a way. F: I do work within it on a smaller scale. It feeds me for the teaching with my professional students, and for my work as a mentor in Zurich. But I had some desperate moments not long ago: a new room, a much bigger hall for music. The acoustics are different, the pathway to this or that instrument has been changed, or getting the children to the blackboard… Everything is different. And then there was Carnival and the ski holidays—the children were crazy! What do I do? And even if the kids are settled down, it’s not always evident and easy to create this collective learning process. They are used to having a teacher in front. Here there is freedom, and they know it. They smell it. They know I am not the kind of teacher who is there with a rigid solution.
M: There are so many things that come into play. We don’t have them in desks. We have an open space. The same open space that makes the 23-year-olds close up does something very different to a six year-old, or an eight year-old. It is a catalyst and a mirror. F: I’m so grateful when someone reminds me, “They are only six or seven.” They just left kindergarten! I meet them in the school, so I am already part of the system. But for them everything is possible. M: You don’t want to wreck that. They are more open and alive then I am. This must say something about myself, but I am often uncomfortable with the idea that I am teaching children anything. I sometimes think all I can do is to merely put them in a room and set up the conditions under which they might teach themselves. I can give them a piece of information, but it’s just a sliver. “This is a quarter-note.” That’s after 44 minutes of activities, and I can show them that in a minute. And they’ll recognize the symbol next week. Did I teach them that? I showed it to
M: And they are desperate for that kind of freedom. F: So they have to find out how far they can go. Where are his limits? Very difficult sometimes. M: So how do you manage that? F: I had to learn to become more precise with limits in certain cases. I
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them. They taught themselves. The longer I teach, the less I even want to ever show it to them. It ends then. “Oh, that’s what all that movement was? Oh, I know what that is. I already learned that from somebody else.” And then they want to show me what they know, and then we’re done. They already ‘know’ that. But maybe that’s just my own problem. Others don’t seem to get hung up on that as much.
learner does with those things. It’s just the beginning. I don’t know if I will be there to see how it develops. I often think about the children I have for two years. When they move on, their next teacher wants to know, “What did you learn with Mr. Bautz? What, you don’t know what a quarter-note is? You don’t know such-and-such a song? What did he do with you?”
F: It’s great that you go so far to question it. It’s not a comfortable thing to do.
M: We all walk into each other’s classes and say that. Do they know how to do this thing that is so central to my teaching, and counts as knowing for me? But those certain things are not necessarily the same for everybody.
M: The older I get, the farther that quarter-note gets pushed to the end of class for the young ones. At some point, will I pass the point where it doesn’t feel like a music class? We were moving. That’s music to me. We were playing with instruments. How do I describe what they learned?
F: I am lucky to have a good director in the school, and I think he is thankful for the way I am teaching. The children like coming, and I have enough to talk about what they have learned. I think we have to be pro-active, also. To defend our way of teaching.
F: Sometimes I ask questions. Can we start and stop together? Did you hear the others? Did you hear that you started to early? No problem. We can try again. It’s about observation, perception— Wahrnehmung—to see what’s true, to be present with all your senses. To feel, to hear, to see. And there we are in the center of eurhythmics. How to use our senses collectively. It’s a challenge because it can be uncomfortable. They have their conflicts and disturbances because everything is interesting. How to direct the process? Focus is the key. I would like us to start the song, or these five notes together. And to stop together. These two will play together and stop together, and then that one will play the gong. Is that possible? We have to manage so many things before we come to the point where it goes well. But then to see the faces of happy children who experienced and discovered something. The discovery comes from silence. I must insist nothing. And if just that happens I am happy. Not much more. No quarter-notes!
M: Me too. This year I chose one class and I wrote on a blog each week about our activities. I tried to include as much as I could: what I observed, what worked, what didn’t, what this might turn into next week. It was hard to stay committed to doing that, and in fact I dropped the ball a bit at the end. But that was helpful for me in bringing clarity for myself to what exactly happened in the classroom. The children aren’t able to say what they’ve learned because it isn’t the right question. The question should be: what did you do? But even then, the intention won’t be necessarily be clear to them, and so they may describe it very differently from how I would. At each moment you could stop the lesson and ask me why we are doing such and such and I would always be able to tell you. And yet the parents are pouring out money for this and rightfully want to know what is going on in the classroom. When you finish a class, it’s often like a dream: it evaporates in a way. It’s like when you finish improvising. What just happened there? I can’t tell you. It was magical but I can’t exactly say what it was. I think that is a good thing, but I recognize everyone might not see it like that. I find by writing about my experiences I feel clearer about what has happened.
M: In what you have just described there is a list of things that you could say they learned, skills they are building, and most importantly experiences they have had. That for me is all you need. F: Do you mean a list for ourselves as teachers? Or a list of expectations from the school?
F: It is so good to question our own teaching. Thank you so much for your questions and thoughts! It is very inspiring and enriching to share our experiences.
M: We might have more of a problem with that in the U.S. Curriculums often contain a list of things that students should know by the end of the course, but we aren’t always clear what we mean by “know.”
M: I couldn’t agree more! Thank you, Fabian.
Fabian Bautz holds Diplomas in Eurythmics, Music Education and TaKeTiNa Rhythm Teaching. He been a guest teacher and lecturer at various universities, congresses and institutions Europe and the United States since 1989. Since 2001 Fabian has taught graduate level eurhythmics at the Lucerne University of Music, as well as eurhythmics for children. He has taught improvisation classes at the Formation Continue of Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva and graduate eurhythmics classes at the University of Theater and Music in Zürich. Fabian has been a member of the board of FIER since 2007, and is currently serving as its vice president.
F: In Germany, they talk a lot about competence in relation to curriculum development. You have experiences with a certain material to discover how to use it. And there is a space for individual solutions. This is an interesting process. M: We do not always favor the individualistic response in the U.S., even though we like to think of ourselves as individualists. F: Switzerland is moving in this direction. A curriculum is defined more by these terms: more competency-based rather than efficiency-based. It’s about information, material, and what the
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2018 National Conference
Improvisation: The Musical Mind Embodied JANUARY 6-7, 2018
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY/DOMINGUEZ HILLS 1000 E. Victoria Street, Carson, CA 90747 The Dalcroze Society of America invites proposals to present workshops for its 2018 National Conference, where we will celebrate our 40th anniversary as a nonprofit. This event will consist of a two-day atelier focused on the theme Improvisation: The Musical Mind Embodied. Improvisation figures in Dalcroze Education in many ways, from the physical actions students improvise--typically in response to music--to the music the teacher improvises in order to shape students’ experience. Students are often called upon to improvise with voice and/or percussion, lending the class dynamic a creative character that invites students to try things out, take risks, and discover solutions that work best for them. Improvisation empowers Dalcroze students to personalize the education they’re receiving and make the music their own. In a word, it’s essential to Dalcroze Education. To give conference attendees a high degree of choice as to which area to explore at any given time, the conference’s innovative “atelier” format will enable them to choose from among sessions offered in each of the five branches of Dalcroze Education, or one on a special application of Dalcroze Methods and/or Principles. We ask presenters to design their sessions so they can take place within the allotted 75-minute time frame while also allowing time for questions and discussion. Those interested in leading sessions may submit up to three proposals; however, we encourage you to submit proposals in different areas and at different participant experience levels. While we give preference to presenters who have Dalcroze credentials (Dalcroze Certificate, License, or Diplôme Superiéur), we welcome and strongly encourage those at other levels of Dalcroze
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teacher training, as well as those outside the Dalcroze community, to submit proposals that would be enriching to all in attendance. Be sure to submit all proposals electronically to Dr.WilliamR.Bauer, President, Dalcroze Society of America, President@DalcrozeUSA.org (as well as to Bill.Bauer@csi.cuny.edu) by midnight EDT, Friday September 15, 2017. We encourage presenters to propose workshops in any of the following areas for whatever level(s) of Dalcroze experience they are qualified to teach. We will give preference to proposals that address the atelier theme explicitly or implicitly. 1. Dalcroze Eurhythmics 2. Dalcroze Solfège 3. Dalcroze Improvisation 4. Dalcroze Pedagogy (including teaching demonstrations, videos, etc…) 5. Dalcroze Plastique Animée (Live or recorded) 6. Special Applications of Dalcroze Methods and/or Principles ● Dance Education and Performance ● Seniors ● Special Needs Students ● Private Lessons ● The Suzuki Method ● Single Line Instruments ● Choral/Instrumental Rehearsal and Performance ● Theater, Drama, Acting Courses ● Collegiate Solfège/Theory Courses ● Other All proposals must contain the following information (we will not consider incomplete applications): 1. Name, biographical information (150 word limit), and head shot (JPEG format) 2. Description a) Title b) Abstract describing what participants can expect to get from taking the workshop (250 word limit); Plastique Animée performances should include estimated timing c) Category (from the list above) d) Dalcroze Music/Movement subject(s) addressed in the workshop e) Participant Level I. Introductory (Pre-Certificate) II. Pre-License (Post-Certificate) III. Pre-Diplôme (Post-License) 3. Equipment needs, including technical requirements (audio, audio-visual, etc.) No later than midnight EDT, Friday September 15, 2017, kindly direct your proposal(s) to the attention of: Dr. William R. Bauer, President, DSA, at President@DalcrozeUSA.org (and Bill.Bauer@csi.cuny.edu). Kindly direct all inquiries to Bill as well.
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BY PATRICK CERRIA
BOOK REVIEW KIDS, MUSIC ’N’ AUTISM: BRINGING OUT THE MUSIC IN YOUR CHILD AUTHOR: DR. DORITA S. BERGER PUBLISHER: JESSICA KINGSLEY PUBLISHERS YEAR: 2015 PAGES: 261
This became clearer while reading Emile Jaques-Dalcroze’s Rhythm, Music and Education (1921). I began to notice how specific parts of our physiology like the nervous and vestibular systems, along with things like balance, coordination, and temperament were discussed in both books. I was also taken with how The Music Effect, while being a clinical work, did not go over my head. By the time I completed my Dalcroze Certificate, I’d read all of Dr. Berger’s books and they continue to be valued reference points in my teaching.
In 2015 she published Eurhythmics for Autism and Other Neurophysiological Diagnoses, and this text seemed to tie all of the others together. All of Dr. Berger’s books go to great lengths to explain our physiological structure and how it relates to the structure of music. In chapter 4, she defines music as being “a synthesis of multifarious elements, the acoustic energies of which serve to communicate the fundamental nature of its creator—the composer—and the physical, emotional, and mental energies of the performer” (Berger, 2015, p.97).
Before I begin, I must confess: I discovered Dr. Dorita S. Berger’s work by accident — but a great accident nonetheless.
It is these dynamic attributes that allow us to process music in various ways. For Berger, it is an art form that caters to the dynamic qualities of our individual character: “…each physiological system and brain processes music differently, according to whether the listener’s body rhythms and energies resonate with the incoming intricacies of this aesthetic form of expression” (Berger, 2015, p.97-98).
While working towards my Dalcroze Certificate, I had the good luck to also be working with a group of occupational, physical, and speech therapists. We were collectively running two summer camps. The first was for children with cerebral palsy and ran for four weeks. After a week in between we ran a second for autistic children.
Anyone who has ever worked with children or adults who have an autistic spectrum diagnosis (ASD) knows the varied attributes that come with it. At its core, ASD is a neurological based disorder, but many autistic children also demonstrate speech delays, low muscle tone, emotional outbursts, lack of body awareness as well as other sensory based delays. Many of these disorders are unfamiliar to people who do not work with these populations of children and adults. However, anyone who has ever taught a eurhythmics class to a roomful of children with ASD knows and understands the immediate effects it has. I believe this is because eurhythmics allows the students to express the varying ways their physiology processes music. It also provides the teacher the tools to ebb and flow with the varying needs of the class. In Rhythm, Music and Education Dalcroze (1921) speaks to this: “…music is grounded in human emotion on the one hand, in the aesthetic research after combinations of sound on the other, the study of sound and movement should be collated and harmonized, and no one branch of music should be separable from the others” (p.7).
While trying to come up with more methods and exercises to assist with the children, I Googled “music and physiology” and the rest is history. Dr. Dorita S. Berger (Dr. Dori) is a music therapist that approaches her work with a heavy nod to eurhythmics. Her work with—and subsequent writing on—autistic children is not only extensive, but also insightful. Her methods and treatments were not developed just from the perspective of a clinician, but also of a Dalcroze teacher, and the two make for a wonderful approach. The first book I read (and continue to read) that Dr. Berger contributed to is The Music Effect: Music Physiology and Clinical Applications (2016), which she co-authored with Daniel J. Schneck. I was drawn to this book initially by the title. (Music Physiology! How cool is that?!) What I discovered were the commonalties between myself (a Dalcroze teacher in-training) and the therapists I was working with. I was surprised at the common language eurhythmics teachers and therapists had in common.
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When I began teaching in a self-contained school for autistic children, I had to learn how things like low muscle tone, lack of body awareness, balance issues, speech delays, sensitivity to loud sounds, and behavioral problems were all a part of ASD. In addition, there were students who had perfect pitch, could memorize whole sections of sonatas or pop songs, and even one student who could recite the entire lineups for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, and Pittsburgh Pirates from memory (including jersey numbers and positions). Mind you, I also had students who displayed none of these attributes. The ability of eurhythmics to simultaneously address the needs of all these varied learners simultaneously is something that continues to surprise me.
In her latest book, Kids, Music ’n’ Autism, Bringing Out the Music in Your Child , Dr. Berger espouses further on the dynamic effects music has on all of us. This slender volume provides excellent explanations of physiological functions like the vestibular system without going over the reader’s head. Dr. Berger continues to use an approachable style of writing. As more and more research emerges regarding the effects music has on our brains, the words of Dr. Berger continue to make more and more sense in the ever-evolving world of music education. In a chapter titled “The Sense-Ability of The Musical Brain” Berger breaks down individual components of our physical systems further showing the reach of musical power.
What has also surprised me over the years is the amount of shared vocabulary amongst Dalcroze teachers, occupational therapists (OT’s) and physical therapists (PT’s). When I began working with an OT it didn’t take long for us to understand each other. Terms such as proprioception, body awareness and socialization were terms we had in common. During my Certificate studies, I was not surprised to discover that eurhythmics classes were given to children with special needs in Switzerland as early as 1917. It makes perfect sense!
The first time I’d ever heard music described as having a tactile quality was in my eurhythmics studies with the late Robert Abramson. Dr. Berger does so again in this book: We feel/hear/see how we and others make music, we see/touch (and taste, if wind instrument) the instruments or mallets, we see/touch/smell the resin on the bow, our
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senses interacting instinctively and simultaneously. In addition there are inner brain rhythms to sensory system processing of information, all happening collaboratively. If there is something amiss in the sensory processing, then the more that music activity is presented, the more such collaborations can be better organized to become adaptive, automatically! There can never be too much interaction between a child of any age and function and music! (Berger, 2016, p. 38).
and understanding. The expansion of music education in our schools is on the horizon. Dr. Berger continues to provide eloquent words as well as clinical insight to back this assertion up. As Dr. Berger concludes: Every stimulus changes the brain. And music, one of few activities that is a whole-brain, whole body stimulus, activates multiple areas. Emotions are immediately sensitized. Feelings, aesthetic sensations, are felt throughout one’s body — whether or not the person is aware of this. Vibrations message the body, tonalities soothe, and active playing of an instrument — however minimally — stimulates movement, motor sensations, and an awareness of self (Berger, 2016, p.58).
I love this passage because I have experienced this first hand. I have seen how a eurhythmics lesson allowed a roomful of autistic students the chance to not only organize themselves, but also wake up emotionally, physically, socially, and kinesthetically.
I can’t wait for her next book!
In Kids, Music ’n’ Autism, Dr. Berger describes many ways for an individual with ASD to have music in their lives, and also provides insight into other classifications associated with ASD such as anxiety and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Perhaps the greatest service this book provides are guidelines for parents of autistic children. Dr. Berger not only provides coherent explanations on ASD, but also insightful suggestions for parents. She not only writes about eurhythmics, but also music therapy, and whether or not that is the right approach. This leads to a discussion of instrumental lessons and how to find the right teacher, one who understands what’s involved in working with an autistic person. As someone who has worked up close with autistic children and their families, I know the service this book provides is invaluable.
References
Schneck, D.J. & Berger, D.S. (2006). The Music Effect: Music physiology and Clinical Applications. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile. (2000) Rhythm, Music and Education. (Harold F. Rubenstein, Trans.). Dalcroze Society. (Original work published 1921)
Dr. Berger could be a catalyst in the next step of music education. This incredible and dynamic art form is capable of reaching us in ways other art forms and subjects do not. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current rate of ASD amongst American children ages 3-17 is 1.1%. What’s more alarming is the CDC has also produced data showing how the depression rate is double that (2.0%), and the anxiety rate is triple (3.0%).
Berger, D.S. (2015) Eurhythmics for Autism and Other Neurophysiologic Diagnoses. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Berger, D.S. (2016) Kids, Music ‘n’ Autism. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Dr. Berger’s work continues to provide further proof as to why we need to expand the scope and usage of music education. She seems not only to be justifying the work of Dalcroze, but also that of Swiss psychologist and education reformer Edouard Claparede, who believed that the only way education could truly be effective was if those teaching understood the physical functionality of human beings. Dalcroze was, not surprisingly, influenced by his work and I believe they were ahead of their time.
Patrick Cerria began playing the drums at age six and has never stopped. After receiving a BA in Music and the Humanities, he earned the Dalcroze Elementary Certificate at The Juilliard School where he studied with the late Robert Abramson. Patrick has spent the last fourteen years applying eurhythmics within multiple populations of students. These include self contained schools for autistic and physically disabled children; and inner-city high schools that serve at-risk students and students with behavioral and emotional classifications. He now presents staff development workshops to public school teachers showing how to use eurhythmics strategies with the developmentally diverse students they must now teach.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that 13% of the American Public School population receives special education services, roughly 6.5 million children. Educators cannot go into a classroom now without the knowledge of varying classifications and diagnoses. However, a welltrained music teacher with a eurhythmics background can go into a classroom and be highly effective with all students, providing moments throughout the day for self-realization 24
Dalcroze Summit At: Slippery Rock University Leading Introductory Workshops— A Weekend Residency
September 15 - 17, 2017
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR CERTIFICATE STUDY It is an exciting time in the life of the practice of Dalcroze in the United States. Pathways for JaquesDalcroze Certification in the U.S. have branched out to provide more options for students and teachers. For many years, opportunities to study toward certification have been hard to find in the U.S., making it difficult for the work to flourish here. The requirement that only a recipient of Geneva’s Diplôme Supérieur may direct a Dalcroze teacher training program and confer credentials has severely limited us in this regard. Other countries have addressed this need by developing alternatives, and the Dalcroze Society of America resolved to create an American solution. So the DSA formed the Professional Development Committee (PDC) of Diplômées and Licentiates involved in teacher-training to craft a teacher training curriculum. Experienced Dalcroze experts from varied locations and backgrounds collaborated in conference calls for more than four years, and reached agreements as to the Dalcroze Certificate’s meaning, standards, and requirements. At several stages in the process the DSA membership voted to support the PDC’s work. The result is a 3-tiered sequence of teacher-training (referred to as the “T2” program) that allows Licentiates to teach Levels One and Two independently with DSA authorization. The manual is a rich repository of our shared practice in the United States. To view or download your copy, visit dalcrozeUSA. org. The PDC is now working on developing a comparable manual for the Dalcroze License teacher training with the goal of completion in 2018. The three credentials accredited by the Dalcroze Society of America are: • Level 1 – The Introductory Credential in Dalcroze Education • Level 2 – The Applied Credential in Dalcroze Education • Level 3 – The Certificate in Dalcroze Education, accredited by both the DSA and the Institut JaquesDalcroze in Geneva, Switzerland The following programs are now accredited by the DSA: o Winchester Community Music School, Winchester, MA o The Lucy Moses School, Kaufman Music Center, NY o Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY o Dalcroze School of the Rockies, Denver, CO o Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA o Hoff-Barthelson Music School, Scarsdale, NY
For the latest information about training programs accredited by the DSA, visit DalcrozeUSA.org.
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Join us for the 2018 Dalcroze Summer Institute at Longy in beautiful Cambridge, Massachusetts! Learn how to use rhythmic movement, intense listening and improvisation to unlock creativity and open the doors to enriched, enlivened music making and teaching. We hope to see you at our 3-week institute next Summer, 2018! Director Emeritus and Institute Founder: Lisa Parker, Diplôme Supérieur Director: Eiko Ishizuka, Diplôme Candidate
For more information, institute dates, and to join our mailing list, please visit: Longy.edu/Dalcroze
DSA PUBLICATIONS JOB DESCRIPTIONS
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES The positions below are great ways to volunteer some time to help ensure that as many people as possible know about the practice of Dalcroze. A limited number of internships are available for full time students. Internships include free 1-Year memberships to the Dalcroze Society of America. Email editor@dalcrozeusa.org for more information.
Advertising Manager (aprox. 3-5 hours per year) Respond to inquiries via email regarding format, rates, deadlines; submit invoices to advertisers and follow-up for payments; manage advertising swaps with sister organizations.
Reporter (aprox. 1-5 hours per assignment) Create short (500-1000 words) news item pieces for Dalcroze Connections. Gather facts and information (via internet, email, phone); submit copy for publication within 1-3 weeks. Assignments can come from editorial staff or suggestion of reporter.
Associate Editor (aprox. 3-5 hours per month) Develop content for Dalcroze Connections. Solicit feature articles from member contributors. Work with authors in early stages of editing process to shape content. Assist authors in submitting drafts for copy editing by publication deadlines. Help guide the overall look, feel and direction of Dalcroze Connections, the DSA’s trade magazine. The above positions are great ways to volunteer some time to help ensure that as many people as possible know about the practice of Dalcroze. A limited number of internships are available for full time students. Internships include free 1-Year memberships to the Dalcroze Society of America. For a description of the above positions, email editor@dalcrozeusa.org.
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CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR STUDENTS FOR A FABULOUS 2017 DALCROZE SUMMER ACADEMY! We earned our certificate!
Music is movement!
Dalcroze license... check!
IT'S TIME TO START TALKING ABOUT 2018! Save the date! 2018 Summer Academy is July 9-29th We are so proud of all our participants at the DSR License and Pre-Diplôme Courses as well as the The Dalcroze™ Academy! Congratulations to Xing Jin, Eunjin Lee, and Rosa Kim for earning the Dalcroze Certificate and to Lauren Hodgson for earning her Dalcroze license! The Dalcroze School of the Rockies is one of the only authorized Dalcroze™ teacher-training centers west of Pittsburgh. It offers a clear, detailed path to Dalcroze™ Certification and/or Licensure. The DSR Professional Studies Program also provides opportunities for long-distance study for those who have participated at the academy, including lessons via Skype. Please join us to experience the joy of music from the inside out!
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REFLECTIONS: A PATH OF DISCOVERY BY ANGELA CLEMENS 2017 DSA SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT This summer I was fortunate to study for two weeks at the Institute for Jaques-Dalcroze Education. Under the guidance of Jack Stevenson, I achieved my Level 2 Certificate. Though I have over 20 years’ experience teaching elementary general music and have long been familiar with Dalcroze principles, I am a newcomer to the Dalcroze world. Last summer’s two-week training served to introduce me to the possibilities, but this summer I felt things gel. My training has given me deeper knowledge and the skills sets needed for Eurhythmics and improvisation, and I am excited to take this back to my students this fall. Thanks to the Dalcroze Society for the scholarship assistance!
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DALCROZE CONNECTIONS Dalcroze Society of America PO Box 15 Valencia, PA 16059