THE EURHYTHMICS OF JAQUES-DALCROZE. [To Tor Rolvoo Or no srarrATo.."1
Sin,—Anyone who devotes any time to the study of the Jacines.Dalcroze method is sure to be perpetually besieged by inquirers of every sort with the same questions on their
lips : "What are Eurhythmics ? and what is the use of them F" Neither question can in reality be satisfactorily answered except by an invitation to the inquirer to take a course himself. Eurhythmics, as M. Jaques-Dalcroze is con- stantly repeating, are not a theory, but an experience; the
questions raised by the method can only be profitably dis- cussed by those who have themselves experienced its results on their minds and bodies Since, however, BO many people seem determined to wring some sort of an answer from some- one, it may be advisable for a student, though of short stand- ing, to try to describe some of these experiences and to suggest the directions in which the method may be of value.
The exercises may, on the whole, be divided into two groups; we may call them exercises of control and exercises of inter- pretation. (It must, of course, be understood that there is no rigid line between the two, and many exercises may belong to both groups or to either.) As an example of the exercises of control, take the following: the pupils march round the room in time to the mask:, and at the teacher's command immediately take one step backwards and then go on again. This exercise may be fairly easy if the speed is slow and the commands come at long intervals, but at a moderately quick speed and where the commands come in rapid succession it will be found bewilderingly difficult to accomplish. Here is a sizailatr exercise, more difficult because it contains two factors instead of one: the pupils march and clap their hands in time to the music; when the teacher says "Hand" the pupils omit one clap, when the teacher says " Foot " they omit one step. In this case also where it is taken quickly and the commands are alternated and repeated with rapidity a beginner has a sensation of mental confusion and lack of physical control which results in a curious feeling of helplessness, to which is often added exasperation at being unable to accomplish sueh apparently simple movements. Besides these exercises the object of which is to enable the will to cheek or alter a movement with rapidity and certainty, there are exercises to train different parts of the body to move independently of each other. For instance, the pupil heats four-time—somewhat in the fashion of a conductor, but with both arms ; at the teacher's command the left arm stops for one beat while the right arm goes on, but on the next beat the left arm continues so that both arms are then again beating four-time, but the right arm is a beat ahead of the left. Then, again, the right arm may beat four, while the left beats three, the head two, and the feet five. These exercises, unlike the first described, sound more complicated and difficult than they are. In a very short time they become automatic, and can be performed by children without any feeling of strain_ We then come to the exercises of interpretation. In order to make these clear it must first be explained that in general the arms are used for beating time, while the feet take one step for every note played. For instance, in a bar consisting of one crotchet and two quavers the arms would make two regular movements because the bar is in two-four time, while the feet would make three steps, the last two twice as quick as the first, Many exercises merely consist in the pupil listening to a bar, or series of bars, played by the teacher, and afterwards realizing them, as it is called, with these arm and leg movements. But not only the time and the actual notes are to be shown by the body—every shade in the music, the change from staccato to legato, the crescendos and diminuendos, the accelerandos and ritenutos, must all be instantly rendered by physical movement.
This will perhaps give some idea of what we are doing when we are doing rhythmic gymnastics. The second question remains to be answered—Why do we do them P What is the use of them ? When Benjamin Franklin was asked, in the first days of the invention of balloons, "What is the use of a balloon ?" he answered, "What is the use of a baby P " Certainly eurhythmics also are in their babyhood, and what they may develop into or what may develop out of them cannot yet be finally announced. But even now we can see some of the directions in which the method is of value, and we can name without hesitation education and art.
In a musical education it is clear that the training of the rhythmic sense is valuable, but it is probably only personal experience which can show the difference between an Intel- lectual mathematical comprehension of a rhythm and the complete realization of it with the whole body. It is, moreover, by a natural instinct that the body responds to musical stimulus. Nearly everybody instinctively beats time to a stronglyaccented march or waltz. The breathing and circulation are unconsciously affected by music, and so is the muscular tension. These physiological movements may then, it is only rational to suppose, form the basis of a training which shall further and further develop a feeling for music and a cow- prehension of it. A grasp of rhythm may, too, be made use of in acquiring a feeling for harmony and for musical form, I have seen a class of children of about five years old who had been learning eurhythmics only a few weeks and had had no other musical education, show by their marching that they plainly felt the end of the period in a simple song form. But the value of eurhythmics in education is certainly not confined to the musical education- The exercises for the control of the body are of much more general application. Concentration, quick reaction to stimulus, equilibrium mental and physical, self-control and self-reliance, are amongst the qualities which every form of education must pursue and which eurhythmics especially develop.
Nor is it only as part of an educationist system that M. Jaques-Dalemze's method is of importance. The invention and complication of rhythmic effects may well be going to be the special characteristic of the music of the twentieth century, and if that is so, this systematic study of rhythm will without doubt be one of the causes of such a development. In operatic, art, both creative andinterpretative, what openings are there not for a recognition of the value of rhythmic movement! Wagner. it is true, long since desired the synthesis of words, music, and gesture, but how painfully far we still remain from any such unity! So long as the singers imagine that it is a simple matter to move their bodies to the music's demands we shall find passages like the sailors' chorus in Tristan sand Lade ruined by their irregular movements, and the scene of Siegfried's breaking the anvil made ridiculous by the blow visibly falling several seconds after the crash is audible. These are gross examples which already are almost intoler- able; but if we come to the finer shades—the orchestral crescendos accompanied by relaxed gestures or the calm of the music interpreted by fussiness on the stage—we shall begin to realize what a change would be brought about if the singers were trained to follow and respond to the music with every fibre of their bodies.
Audit is not only to the operatic stage that such a training should be confined it would have its place on every stage that aimed at producing beauty of movement, for beautiful movement is rhythmic movement. What is not, perhaps, so readily recognized is the dramatic nature of rhythmic move- ment. An interesting example of the effective character of rhythmic movement vraa given in Le Suers du Frintemps by the Russian ballet, where the representation of a panic in the first act and the advance of the souls of the ancestors in the second were almost terrific examples of the power of rhythm alone. A new school of actors and dramatists trained and inspired by a sense of rhythm would produce something that would renew the stage.
But, after all, eurhythmics are not only good as a means, but as an end in themselves. The pleasure of moving to the music, of receiving it and giving it out again, of expressing it with one's whole body, amply justifies the method, and can only be appreciated by those who have taken part in it. It supplies a human need felt by nearly every one, though often enough unconsciously, the need of expressing musical emotion by movement, and the need of expressing in a group the common emotion of the group. For here is another charm of eurhythmics. The rhythm played by the teacher, the rhythm which all the pupils have to realize simultaneously, is, as it were, the focus of their separate feeling; and while each one goes with an individual motion and independently of the others, yet the common rhythm gives them a unity of movement which has its counterpart in a curious unity of feeling. Miss Jane Harrison in her Ancient Art and Ritual speaks of the ritual dances of the Greeka and their develop- ment into the glorious Greek drama. From this new and entrancing ritual of rhythm what strange flower of art may, one wonders, blossom in the coming years P—I am, Sir, .kc.,
M. S.
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