The dance and its place in education

Front matter

Zora Cernich

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Photo by Geo. Bell. Milwaukee, Wis. Courtesy of Woodley Studio, Madison, Wis.

Preface

After the work of developing a type of dancing that should be at once educational and creative had been carried on for several years, the need for some written formulation of the work both as to its aim and its procedure became apparent. An earlier book, “A Manual of Dancing,” served for a time until the exhaustion of that edition gave the opportunity to meet the need for a newer and fuller discussion. This book is not offered as a complete treatment of the subject in all its phases. It would be folly to attempt to give in one volume all that is known about the philosophy, history, and science of the dance. But, because the procedure of instruction has been so definitely influenced by conclusions formed from the study of these essential fields, it will be necessary to state the facts which have been accepted, and which are to be considered as points of departure in the further development of this discussion. In all this the writer makes no pretense to an original piece of work. What is offered is only a fresh and different application of long established and well known facts. It was in the general study of the philosophy and science of art that the spirit of the dance was revealed, and it is in this understanding of its true spirit that an attempt has been made to revive the dance.

While the type of dancing discussed in these pages has been used successfully with all ages from elementary school to university and even beyond, and while the gen-

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Vill PREFACE eral principles are the same for all students, regardless of age, this discussion pays particular attention to the needs and possibilities of older students. Again, this book affords an introduction to the principles and possibilities of the dance that it is hoped may be helpful and interesting to the general reader, but its main interest and appeal lies within the field of education. And while it affords a manual for the student, it is addressed primarily to the teacher. Therefore, if it can serve as a help and a stimulus to the better teaching of the dance in our schools and colleges, it will have fulfilled its purpose.

Inspiration and assistance have been gained from so many sources that it is impossible to make complete and adequate acknowledgment of indebtedness to individuals or to the works of others. Special mention should be made, however, of the inspiration received from the work of Alys E. Bentley. Grateful acknowledgment is also made to all those students and friends who have aided in the preparation of this manuscript, and to those students whose patient cooperation in the application of principles which were not yet fully established made this book in its present and final form possible.

M. N. H’D.

Contents

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Foreword

Some systematic physical recreation, some education of the body, has come to be a requirement in practically all colleges where women are being educated. In universality this requirement stands along with the requirement that each college student shall learn some power to express herself in her mother tongue, and that she shall know at least a little of the literature in which her race has set down a record of its heart’s desires. Like the power to use the mother tongue and the knowledge of what her ancestors have held to be good and beautiful in life, this physical education is meant to give the college woman a habit that will carry beyond her campus days, a resource for happy living. Many thoughtful Observers of the physical education requirement in the college curriculum would accept as a test of its success the extent to which the exercise required in college remains the recreation of later years.

For this reason colleges have substituted physical activities of many kinds for the more fixed and precise drill which older college women remember. So varied are these that it seems reasonable to hope that every student will find something which she does well enough to give her keen immediate pleasure, so that she will keep a little time for physical play even when life crowds her hours with other things. College departments of physical education are accordingly always seeking for activities least likely to be interrupted when the college x1 xii FOREWORD woman finds herself in a tiny village, with no swimmingpool or bathing beach, no lake or river for her canoe, no bowling alley, not even a frosty winter to spread snow for her skiis or snowshoes or toboggan. Furthermore, college realizes that if possible the college woman needs a physical recreation that does not depend upon finding a number of others skilled and ardent in the same activity, for in her remote village the college hockey or tennis champion may fail to find the playmates necessary to give her a tingling, exhilarating hour.

Students at the University of Wisconsin have now for seven years been fortunate in having the privilege of such an activity in Professor Margaret H’Doubler’s classes in interpretative dancing.

This work I saw first not in any laboriously rehearsed public program, but in an ordinary class hour. It was in the dark era when the natural delight in rhythmic motion had small chance of gratification. Fashion had reduced ordinary social dancing to a graceless lurching or tottering or lunging about to the accompaniment of strident, unmelodious sounds, beating a barbaric reiteration of a crass or meaningless phrase. The only other type of dancing was of an elaborate pattern requiring practically professional aptitude and skill. Consequently it was surprising and delightful to find that Miss H’Doubler’s modest and cordial invitation to “come up and see a class at work”’ had introduced me to a group of college girls who were dancing with great joy what excellent music meant to each of them. Music at that dreary period was exiled from social dances, but here students were entering into intimate and real possession of some of the most beautiful things humanity has achieved.

FOREWORD Xill

Physical education was quietly putting these young women into vital relationship with an element of our civilization that is of the spirit as well as of the senses. Body was being made capable in this education of expressing what the mind heard and felt. Body and soul were well at home together in that hour of dancing; there was no topsy-turvy confusion as to which was master and which was joyously responsive servant. There was here no unenlightened paganism bidding the mind to crouch or sleep and inviting the physical to make itself allsufficient and dominant. Life in that dancing class had a happy and excellent unity. The delight of responsive nerves and muscles blended with the delight in good music.

There is little doubt that some students were enjoying music of a higher quality than they had been in the habit of liking. No arbiter of taste, telling them that they ought to enjoy it, could have had the effect which came naturally from hearing it over and over and receiving it more intensely because of the bodily expression of its rhythm.

Similarly, through the dramatic element of the dancing, the dancers were brought into touch with some of the most charming and most significant things which the race has embodied in literature and in plastic or pictorial art. So this dancing was not a glorification of the body for its own sake: it linked the joy of physical activity with the pleasure of the mind in things approved as charming and worthy.

In another respect, too, this dancing was delightful (the impression of that first day has been borne out by six years of observing the work): the dancers were not exploiting themselves; they were not vying with each

XIV FOREWORD other. There was no competition, no grasping selfassertion, no disappointment. What one got took nothing from the others. Each expressed as adequately as she could in her own way what the music and the dramatic situation meant to her. There were no points, no score; no winning, no losing. The moments had a quality that were self-sufficient; they had no need to be summed up or appraised.

It was not merely the absence of individual self-striving; it was the positive realization that the group was the medium of expression rather than the single person. One of the most gifted dancers has always preferred to be one of a group rather than to dance alone. So this kind of dancing is an activity that expresses and fosters a generous social spirit. One might truly say that a deeper rhythm than that of any music is thus found and satisfied in these class hours. To be intent and not tense, to feel one’s own life richly and profoundly and at the same time to feel the joy of comradeship—that is what this dancing of college girls at the University of Wisconsin has seemed to be to one who looked on.

It is therefore with warm interest that I have seen this beautiful educational activity pass to other communities, and that I see it now go to the still wider circle which this book may reach.

F. Louise Narpin, Dean of Women.

Madison, Wisconsin, September 30, 1924.

THE DANCE AND

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Chapter I THE PROBLEM

Before undertaking the more logical development of our dis- Sam |Cussion, it may be of value to

Alii AAN set down those observations and Peerdons Tig have led the writer to conceive of the dance as an educational force, and which will establish the line of thought upon which the whole discussion is based.

The dance has suffered too long from the common use made of it as a means of recreation and amusement. Modern civilization has not usually considered it either worthy of serious effort or intellectually profitable. Only recently has progressive education recognized the value of physical education. The dance has shared in this recognition, but only as a part of physical education. Even there it finds but a small place, and is forced to assume many guises to hold its place. But as more students with a real scholarly interest enter the field of physical education, they are realizing that its program has too long ignored the relation between body and soul as expressed in regulated rhythm—not the rhythm that is experienced when mass drill is regulated by music, nor the rhythm of the body in vigorous muscular activity,

The figure drawings used in this book are copyrighted by Miss Bernice Oehler. They were developed from quick action sketches of dancers in class work.

nor the rhythm of group marching, but the rhythm that is felt when the rhythm of bodily activity is associated with the deeper and finer currents of man’s emotional nature.

The very nature of the modern world makes it imperative that such provision be made. Our age is one of industrialism and materialism. The routine of the office and the “‘piece-jobs”’ of the factory rob the worker of any opportunity to identify himself with his work. They do not afford him any opportunity for appreciating or creating beauty of form either physical or spiritual. It is no wonder that he and his fellows flock to the dance halls and movies to satisfy their need for self-expression and a wider experience. Nor is the time much more favorable to the more cultivated and intellectual. When we reflect on the opportunity that primitive man even in his convention-bound world had for self-education and the enlarging of his imagination by free and impulsive expression, we can appreciate one of the defects of our so-called culture. With the progress of civilization, the impulse to give vent to our feelings has been brought too rigidly under the domain of our reason. The world in which we live affords little opportunity for the individual to grow by the exercise of his creative impulses. He is reduced to mere imitation. It is true that we are no longer in the primitive stage of culture, but when we realize the important role that self-expressive activities have played in the evolution of the race, we can more justly appreciate the necessity of finding a place for them in our lives to-day. For man cannot live fully on his intellect alone; the artist lying dormant in him must be allowed to develop. Psychology teaches us that education proper does not begin

THE PROBLEM 3 until the individual has begun to try to realize his ideals in the world without. In other words, it recognizes the importance of creative activity in the development of the mind. Without the opportunity to body forth the aspirations of the self, we may never realize with what powers we are endowed. And without some provision for our sense of beauty we are more than likely to continue that failure to appreciate the world we live in, which for all our material triumphs leaves the life of our age so joyless for vast numbers of men.

Here our education has not succeeded in helping our people to that art spirit which they so much want. The fault is mainly with our conceptions of educational values. Too often we have not given a place to the appreciation and love of beauty in a scheme of education meant to prepare one for the serious business of living. With far too many people, education has been looked upon as a means of bettering one’s economic condition, and not as a way of making a more adequate man of oneself. It seems almost as if the aim were to be a success in business, instead of a successful human being.

But now our advances in education are intensifying the very needs that education has long disregarded. We are paying more attention to the individual than we have paid for a long time; we are encouraging him to discover and to express himself. We are encouraging him to go out for what he wants. And yet too often we fail to give him adequate acquaintance with the various planes of desirable things that he may learn to discriminate and to elect the higher rather than the lower in entertainment and recreation as well as in the graver undertakings of life. And where our education fails to make such provision, it is falling short as education. For the aim of education, as Henmon has aptly defined it, is “To bring an individual from where he is to where he ought to be.” Or to say the same thing with more particular regard to art, the problem is how to keep alive the creative impulse in the child and help carry it over into the realities of adult life with heightened power and more enlightened purpose.

The teacher of any subject who earnestly approaches his task from such a general point of view must feel a deep sense of responsibility and at the same time a sense of great opportunity to serve mankind, and help men to find meaning in life and joy in living it. But, to do this, we as teachers should have some realization of what is for the good of the race in general, and at the same time some understanding of the fundamental principles that serve to realize those racial values in the individual. Man, and all that he does, are the result of the workings of natural laws which were active long before the knowledge was discovered to explain them back to us. It is for this reason that the contributions made to modern education by educational psychology are so valuable. Not only does the study of individual differences, for instance, make clear why we are different, and what the consequences of our differences are, but it also reveals that underneath these differences we are all fundamentally alike. We all have at heart the same feelings and emotions, no matter how different their development into living forces may be because of the influence of education. Consequently, as teachers of the dance, we should question ourselves upon the relation of our art to the basic qualities of human nature. We should ask ourselves such

THE PROBLEM 4 questions as these: Just what do we mean by the dance? Why do we dance? What are the ultimate values and justifications of the dance? Further, what purpose does it serve, what function has it performed in the evolution of society that it has not perished? What is the nature of this urge for self-expression in movement? Finally, what are the educational values of the dance? What does it contribute to the refinement of the student and the cultivation of his artistic life? Such a search into the real nature of the dance will yield us our philosophy of dancing, a philosophy based on a fundamental belief in the esthetic capacities of man and the real worth of his expressing himself through creative activity, if only he will express the best that is in him. And from this philosophy must be formed a theory that will be at once an expression of the aims for which the dance should work, and a formulation of the fundamental principles underlying it. An example of such a principle is our insistence that the dance be an adequate means of self expression, so that when movement of mind, soul, and body are coérdinated, rhythmical, beautiful and expressive movements may result. In order to work toward this end, our theory must be built on a mastery of the structure and the natural movements of the body, and a knowledge of the principles of esthetics, and a thorough understanding of the psychology of the emotions. This carries us over into what is the science of the dance, the systematized knowledge of cause and effect, which tells us how to adjust our efforts to attain the desired ends. Here, we must distinguish between the art of dancing and dancing as an art. The first, the art of dancing, is the skill which performs the acts directed by science.

Science, to repeat, is systematized knowledge, so art in this sense means knowledge made efficient by skill. It does not go beyond skillful performance. But by dancing as an art, we mean something more,—dancing as an adequate and harmonious means of expressing our emotional life. This second meaning takes us back to our philosophy and brings us once more to the realization that dancing must be genuinely expressive of the inner man if it is to rank with the other fine arts.

To summarize—our problem in teaching is this: First, we must have well defined aims which are in accord with the general aims of education. Second, we must know the individual needs and capacities of our students. Third, we must be masters of our subject matter; and fourth, we must have some scheme or plan for adapting the subject matter to the group so that we may realize our purposes. If then we wish to guide wisely the development of students, we must understand the nature of intelligence, and the psychology of learning. It is only in the light of these considerations that we can wisely choose our material, and devise our method of teaching. In the last analysis it is the development of human nature, of personalities, that is the important consideration, not the subject itself. That is only a means. Our real purpose is to teach boys and girls and men and women by means of the dance; to teach them a philosophy of life that finds its practical application in the dance.

Chapter II THE DANCE — ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE DEFINED IN TERMS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT

The story of art is the story of mankind. It covers the whole sweep of human life, changing through the ages as man has changed, varying with his religion, his philosophy and his social relations. When man appeared in this world, he came with no fund of intellectual knowledge or experience behind him. He was forced to rely upon his instincts and what brain he had to bring about an adjustment with the world in which he found himself. Gradually, thanks to the powers of his own nature and the forces of his environment, he developed into a feeling, willing, thinking self. In this slow progress of civilization, art, an activity of man’s own creation, has always been a helpful influence. Every age has had its art. This very fact is evidence of its value to man. If it were not of real consequence to the maintenance of society, it would have disappeared by the very laws of natural selection.

When we remember how undeveloped primitive man’s mind was, and how rigorous were the conditions in which he lived, we can appreciate that what forms of expression he had were of necessity very close to his life needs, and that these forms must have been crude and utilitarian in their nature.

With the savage, expressive acts could have been none other than random, impulsive movements that afforded a quite unconscious outlet to his passing feelings. Gradually they were modified by his growing realization of the effect of his own actions until they finally became consciously and intentionally expressive. It was when thus modified that early man’s expressive activities became art. Unfortunately art is thought of by many people only in terms of its highest manifestations as something that exists only in masterpieces in galleries. By the same logic artists have come to be considered as a special class who practice art professionally. Such connotations have made not only the creation of art seem remote from common life but also its appreciation. This is unfortunate and untrue, for as Henri truly says, “Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing anything well. It is not an outside, extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him; for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside of it. Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit, there will be precious works to fill museums.”

Many are the theories that have been propounded to explain art, but whatever definition one accepts, art remains ever the expression of the world’s soul. It takes

ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE II deep root in man’s experience. It is an answer to his instinctive craving for expression. The great artist is he who in his individual emotions and experiences reflects the emotions and experiences of all mankind, and so by sympathy and knowledge penetrates more deeply into the hearts and lives of his fellow men. He must be able to experience the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, and the aspirations of the world individually and collectively. So art may be defined in its result as the adequate translation of emotional experience into some external form. It is the expression of the feeling within by means of line, or color, or sound, or movement so that others may share the feeling.

No matter how diverse the forms of art, they all take root in man’s nature and needs. It cannot be explained, as Hirn so convincingly points out, by play-impulse, or the impulse to attract, or the impulse to imitate, although all of these purposes no doubt have a direct influence on the development of the various forms. Rather, as Hirn goes on to say: 7

“The impelling force in art-creation is to be explained by the psychology of feeling. Every high strung emotional state, which has not found its appropriate expression, causes movement by which we instinctively try to get rid of the feeling of restraint. . . . Yet art production would never have reached so high a development if it had served only as a sedative for human feelings. Art supplies man with the means of intensifying feelings connected with all the varied activities of the soul, and also bestows an inward calm in which all strong emotions find relief. The world has been measured with man as a standard and objects have been trained into the language of mental experiences. Impressions have gained thereby not only in emotional tone but also in intellectual comprehensibility. So irreconcilable is the conflict between the emotional excitation and the intellectual activity that the latter, when it expressly serves the purpose of emotional enhancement, must neutralize the excess of feelings.”

This instinct to express all feeling in order to continue pleasurable states of feeling, and to obtain relief from that which is not pleasurable, has its basis in the physiological phenomena of all life. We see it manifested in the movement of the lowest form of life we know, the amoeba, in its going out toward stimuli which are pleasant and its withdrawal from those stimuli that are unpleasant. And so throughout our complex life our habits depend on this physiological fact of reacting to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. All movement, no matter how complex, is essentially built up on this instinctive expansion and contraction. It is also instinctive to try to give external reality to our feelings in such a way as to bring others to partake of the same emotional experience. This transmission of feeling to others and the response of other people to one’s own emotion really enhances the original emotional state of the creator—which is another source of pleasure in artistic effort. It was this desire to perpetuate his thoughts and feelings that led man in the first place to discover a way of translating them through whatever medium he had at hand and as well as he could within the limits of his powers of execution. It is this craving to have others feel as we do, to experience the enrichment of their response to our feeling that has led to artistic production. Man feels the need, but it is the artist in him that discovers the way of satisfying it; imagination fashions the means out of the background of experience. In art, as in everything else, ‘“‘necessity is the mother of invention.” In other words, back of all the various manifestations of art, and in all its stages from that in which it was merely a crude spontaneous reflex of strong feeling, to those forms that express man’s highest emotional life, the one fundamental impulse is the same—the craving for self-expression.

Of course not everyone can be an artist in the narrow sense of the word. But if we recognize that it is the nature of the original impulse that leads to creative activity, and the emotional value of its expression which distinguishes any activity as art, then we shall see that anyone who approaches his work in a creative spirit and makes it the expression of his own vision of life is an artist. As Hirn says, “From the point of view of artistic perfection, there is all the world between the youthful verses of Goethe and the doggerel of a common schoolboy. But, psychologically the schoolboy’s doggerel may be the result of as strong a craving for poetic expression as any of the world’s greatest poems. . . . If the notion of art is conceived in its most general sense, every normal man, at some time of his life at least, is an artist, in aspiration, if not in capacity.” Noyes carries the same thought a step farther—‘‘The impulse to expression is common to all, the difference is one of degree. And the message of art is for all, according as they are attuned to the response. Art is creation. For the artist it is creation by expression; for the appreciator it is creation by evocation. These two principles complete the cycle; abstractly and briefly they are the whole story of art. To be responsive to the needs of life and its emotional appeal is the just condition of artistic creation. By new combinations of material elements to bring emotion to expression in concrete harmonious forms, themselves charged with emotion and communicating it—is to fashion a work of art. To feel in material whether in the forms of nature or in the works of art, a meaning for the spirit, is the condition of appreciation.”