Dance and Dance Drama in Education

137 Pages·1965·11.571 MB·English

by  V. Bruce and P. Sebastian (Auth.)

Dance
and Dance Drama
in Education
V. BRUCE
M.Ed. Master of the L.A.M.G.
Principal Lecturer in Dance and Dance Drama
City of Leicester Training College
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1965 Pergamon Press Ltd.
First edition 1965
Reprinted 1966
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-20643
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Acknowledgements
I SHOULD like to thank:
The students of the City of Leicester Training College for co­
operation and constant inspiration.
The Heads, staff concerned and the girls who wrote for me about
their dance and dance drama. The schools from which I received such
ready co-operation were, The Mary Linwood School, Leicester,
Rushey Mead Girls' School, Leicester, Harry Cheshire School for
Girls, Kidderminster, Worcestershire and Albright Girls' School,
Oldbury, Worcestershire.
The Head, and the children of Bendbow Rise Infant School, Leicester,
who so delightedly allowed me to take their photographs.
The students of Leicester Training College who co-operated so
willingly in our efforts to obtain illustrations for this book and Mr.
Brian Battersby who was responsible for the photography.
Miss Margaret Oates for patience and care in typing the manuscript.
Mr. G. H. Bantock as my tutor for invaluable help throughout.
To A. B. Clegg for permission to quote from his letter to the Times
Educational Supplement and from his speech at the North of England
Conference, Southport, January 1962.
I wish to acknowledge the permission given by the following pub­
lishers to use quotations.
Editions Gallimaud, from V Ame et la Danse by Paul Valéry, 1924.
Djambatan, N.V. Amsterdam, from Dance Craze and Sacred Dance
by D. Meerloo, 1960.
Sylvan Press Ltd., London, from Ballet Then and Now by Derek
Lynham, 1947.
Vili ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Clarendon Press, Oxford, from Republic of Plato, trans. Corford.
J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, from Labanotation by A. Hutchinson,
1954.
George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, from World History of the
Dance by C. Sachs, 1937.
Her Majesty's Stationery Office, from The Story of a School by A.
Stone, 1949.
The New Era, London, from The Education of the Poetic Spirit by
Marjorie Hourd, 1949.
Faber & Faber Ltd., from Education through Art by Herbert Read,
1948.
Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, from Drama in Education by P. A.
Coggin, 1956.
The World Publishing Co., Cleveland and New York, from The Dance
has Many Faces by W. Sorrell, 1951.
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London, from Feeling and Form by
S. Langer, 1953, from Mental Health and Infant Development by
Dr. Kenneth Soddy, 1957, and from Plato's Theory of Education,
trans. R. C. Lodge, 1947.
The Physical Education Association, from article by Douglas Kennedy
printed in their Journal, March 1950.
Holt, Rinehart & Winston Inc., New York, for quotation from Isadora
Duncan, ed. by Paul Magriel, 1948.
Foreword
IN SO far as we have today a predominant image of the educated man,
it is that of the thinking being. In so far as our educational system aims
at anything other than examination success, based largely on memori­
sation, it is that of rationality. I do not sneer at the intellect or regard
the power to think as unimportant and I wish we could teach people
to think better. But the Greeks, who were not noticeably unintellectual,
realised that the ultimate roots of conduct are affective. "Nothing", as
Plato said in the Laws, "is so native to men as pleasure, pain and desire.
They are, so to say, the very wires or strings from which any mortal
nature is inevitably and absolutely dependent." And they realised the
educational significance of this. "No young creature whatsoever",
Plato went on, "can keep its body or its voice still. All are perpetually
trying to make movements and noises. They leap and bound, they
dance and frolic as it were with glee, and again, they utter cries of all
sorts." Because we were human beings, the Greeks thought it was
necessary to introduce some sense of order into these activities, and it
was partly for this reason that they had the festivals and rituals of the
Gods. "The Gods", Plato continued, "string us together on a thread
of song and dance and have named our choirs after the delight they
naturally afford."
Music, and all it implied, was an essential element in Greek educa­
tion, but, in the Greek sense, is sadly lacking in our schools. We make
little use of those songs which Plato found to be "spells for the soul".
And so the young are left to the exploitation of acute businessmen,
who supply the need our educational system neglects, with all the subtle
aids of modern advertising and myth-making. And the reaction of the
young goes to show that what they provide does, indeed, fulfil a need.
X FOREWORD
Now, especially where the education of the less able is concerned, we
ought to become aware of their problems of involvement and conscious­
ness. They have to learn how to participate and, at the same time, they
need, in some measure, to be aware of what they are doing as self-
conscious human agents. For, where participation is concerned, there
can be no going back to that unreflective assimilation in the life of the
race, that unselfconscious involvement in its feasts and rituals which
more primitive peoples can enjoy. What we do must be the result, in
part, of decision; the burden of consciousness is upon us. It is here that
the carefully wrought and elaborated work of Rudolf Laban can be of
such great assistance. Laban put the art of movement on a possible
educational basis. He invented a technique as a means to the creativity
of bodily movement, a disciplined aid to a fuller and more varied
expressive life than that implicit in "pop" dance. But, though his work
has to some extent spread, it has been little written about; verbal
description of something so ephemeral as dance movement is linguisti­
cally difficult. It is the virtue of Miss Bruce's book that it supplies a
long felt need for a clear, lucid exposition of some of the possibilities
in Laban's work; and she draws extensively on her own experiences as
a teacher of dance and dance drama, so that her work is eminently
practical in nature. I wish it all the success it deserves.
G. H. BANTOCK
Introduction
IT IS difficult to describe in words activities which communicate by
means of a non-verbal language. Ideally this book should be accom­
panied by demonstration, illustrating constantly, because even with
great care in choosing, words are often inadequate or slightly inaccurate.
Nevertheless, it is important that these arts should be explained in
words, in such a way that they can be understood and appreciated by
those who have not experienced moving and acting in this way, yet
are concerned with education.
We use the word "dance" to mean many kinds of movement activity,
social, theatrical and play-like. I use the word "dance" to mean that
activity which has been characteristic of man from earliest times. Such
movement, expressive in nature, arises from an overflowing of energy
and is characteristic of the people who perform it, portraying something
of the quality of their culture. "Taking the form of a consummate
artistic work, spontaneous, emotional, but capable of repetition upon
request."*
For the purposes of education, one tries to understand the nature
of human movement and to exploit such movement so that the language
for dance and dance drama may be rich.
The arts of dance and drama have always been very closely allied
and in dance drama combine, the dance portraying through symbolic
or naturalistic movement the action of the drama.
Dance is often "pure", the dancer expressing through the quality
of gesture and steps her movement "mood". In this case she is con­
cerned particularly with such elements as the shape and design of
#Susan Langer, Feeling and Form, p. 178.
xii INTRODUCTION
gesture or groupings, the rhythm, flow, strength or delicacy of move­
ment.
This book will attempt to explain the arts of dance and dance drama
as they take place in schools and colleges, and to relate them to other
creative arts with which we are more familiar in education.
It will take into account the needs of young people today in so far
as they relate to these arts, and will set out to some extent to observe
and to estimate the balance or lack of balance in our school curricula,
establishing the possible place of dance and dance drama in the
education of children at this present time. Special attention is given
to the place of this work in the curriculum of the Secondary Modern
Girls' School, where such arts could play a most important part.
I have not attempted to analyse the psychological processes which
take place in consequence of the inclusion of dance and dance drama
in education, except in a generalised and intuitive way, but to state
motives, to describe the approach taken in experimental work, and to
estimate possibilities which such work may have. In so doing, I wish
to offer some justification for these arts in education today.
Wherever analysis and understanding of human
movement is concerned, it must be recognised that
the fundamental work was that of Rudolf Laban.
It is as a result of his teaching that my observation
was able to take place.
Chapter I
The History of Dance
leading to the present Place of Dance
and Dance Drama in Education
IN ORDER to see clearly the place of Laban's work in our educational
system, it is necessary to look briefly at the art of dance in history. This
will indicate more clearly the situation which led Laban to devote
himself to the study of movement, and will show how events in this
country enabled his work to become established to its present degree in
our schools.
The dance is the mother of the arts. Music and poetry exist in time, paint­
ing and architecture in space. The creator and the thing created, the artist
and the work are still one and the same thing. Rhythmical pattern of
movement, the plastic sense of space, the vivid representation of a world
seen and imagined, these things man creates in his own body in the dance,
before he uses substance and stone and word to give expression to his inner
experiences.*
To primitive man dance was part of the way of life and it was the
expression used for the occasions and ceremonies which mattered most
in communities where living was close to nature. Dances were celebra­
ted as part of the safeguard and the sanctifying of birth, marriage,
initiation to manhood and to womanhood ; hunting, victory and peace,
harvest and Spring. There were medicine dances, fertility dances, fire
and torch dances, war, funeral and courting dances and those to the sun
and the moon. There were dances imitating the animals they knew so
well. This type of dance in primitive communities was passed on from
generation to generation without recording, for when dance continues
to be part of the expression of the people, passing-on is ensured. Bantu
people did not ask strangers where they lived, but ''What do you dance?"
Dance which is a true expression of a people reflects their way of life and
* Sachs Curt, World History of the Dance p. 3.
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