Inspiring Sound:

Synthesizing Dance and Conducting Pedagogy

for Heightened Creativity on the Podium

By

Matthew Dean Schlomer

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts

(Wind Conducting)

at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

2012

Date of final oral examination: 2/7/12

The dissertation is approved by the following members of the Final Oral Committee: Scott D. Teeple, Associate Professor, School of Music James Smith, Professor, School of Music Dr. Teryl Dobbs, Assistant Professor, School of Music/Department of Curriculum & Instruction Kate Corby, Assistant Professor, Department of Dance Mary A. Brennan, Professor Emerita, Department of Dance

i

To my wife, Katie, and children, Claudia, Roy, and Evelyn. You have not only made this endeavor possible, but a wonderful journey we have shared together. Thank you for your

tremendous support.

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank: my mentor, advisor, and colleague, Scott Teeple, for his profound artistry and unwavering encouragement to seek out new information and opportunities; Dr. Mary “Buff”

Brennan for her insights, sense of adventure, and the most delightful conversations in Lathrop

Hall; Professor Kate Corby and Mary Hayne for your creative and patient instruction in moving the body expressively; Dr. Teryl Dobbs for your high standards and warm encouragement; and

Professor James Smith for your mentorship and generosity of time and insight.

I would also like to acknowledge my family and friends that helped and encouraged me in so many ways during the writing process:

Gabriel and Christine Reilly, David and Michelle Schlomer, Paul Schlomer and Erin

Grunze, David and Sarah Melander, David (Billy) Hagedorn and Marjolein Eweg, my parents

Duane and Barbara Schlomer, Harold and Kathleen Hagedorn, and my colleagues and friends,

Erik Jester and Paul Bhasin.

iii CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii

CHAPTER ONE Introduction...... 1 Need for Study...... 3 Questions...... 5

CHAPTER TWO Literature Review-Conducting ...... 6 Summary...... 31

CHAPTER THREE Dance Pedagogy in Higher Education ...... 33 Margaret H’Doubler...... 38 Summary...... 49

CHAPTER FOUR Dance Curriculum ...... 51 Movement Analysis ...... 54 Somatics ...... 67 Dance Improvisation ...... 77 Summary...... 84

CHAPTER FIVE Implications for Conducting Pedagogy ...... 86 Margaret H’Doubler ...... 88 Movement Analysis ...... 89 Somatic Learning ...... 93 Dance Improvisation ...... 100 Summary...... 102

CHAPTER SIX Conclusion and Implications...... 104 Implications for Future Scholarship...... 109 Closing Remarks ...... 112

APPENDIX ...... 114

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 116

iv TABLES

1 Undergraduate Dance Curriculum: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010-2011 53

2 Traits associated to the Bartenieff Connectivity Patterns 58

3 Rudolf Laban’s Effort States 62

4 Rudolf Laban’s Action Drives 62

5 Integrating Bartenieff Connectivity Patterns into Traditional Conducting Texts 96

v FIGURE

1 Developing and Sharing the Internal Image Via Physical Expression 11

1 CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

The mysteries of the soul are revealed in the movements of the body. –Michelangelo 1

Conducting is an art where sound is influenced through physical manifestations born in silence. Translating aural imagery into physical gestures is often left to intuition with some saying only the naturally coordinated can become renowned conductors. 2 Many studies of conducting dissect the movement components of the successful conductor, but they address the necessary skills from the standpoint of a musician who has learned to move like a conductor. I believe the ideal is for a conductor to become an expert of expressive movement who is motivated by a profound understanding of the music.3 My project examines pedagogical discourse regarding teaching movement and the use of the body in conducting. Conducting scholarship based on Laban’s (1942) movement theories are explored and interrogated (Aubin,

2010; Bartee, 1997; Billingham, 2001; Gambetta, 2005; Hibbard, 1994; Miller, 1988; Yontz,

2001). Next, this body of information is compared to the pedagogy and scholarship in the discipline of dance, especially the development of skillful and expressive movement (Brehm,

1988; Brehm and McNett, 2008; Campbell, 2004; Kassing and Jay, 2003; Wilson, Hagood, and

Brennan, 2006). Finally, I will present the implications of my project and the possibilities for incorporating dance pedagogy into conducting pedagogy.

1 Mary Bond, The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 2007), 16. 2 Erich Leinsdorf (1981) refused to teach conducting, saying, “the motions are of no consequence.” (p. 169). Emily Green addresses this misconception in her 1961 article, “On the Teaching of Conducting,” in the Music Educators Journal. 3 Haynes (1994) makes a full review of conducting textbooks to analyze their approach to non-technical, or expressive, conducting.

2 The traditional path to becoming a conductor varies in training but, with almost no exceptions, begins by performing on an instrument or voice at a high level (Sousa, 1988;

Champman, 2008). As performers step into conducting roles, most struggle to express their musical ideas physically; subsequently, the capacity of their music-making is considerably less than they possess on their original instrument (Spencer, 2000). Conducting pedagogy is a relatively young discipline, joining higher education after World War II (Baker, 1992). The method of conducting pedagogy adopted in this era became more objective and is now considered traditional conducting pedagogy. Traditional conducting pedagogy addresses the transitional awkwardness from instrument to podium by teaching beat patterns and conventions to manage a variety of organizational situations: fermati , tempo changes, etc. (Baker, 1992).

Unfortunately, by the time conducting students reach the point of performing an entire work, they are confined by patterns or have isolated portions of their body to compensate for their lack of coordination. The music’s expression is far from the conductor’s mind and a sense of expressive helplessness leaves them and their ensembles artistically unfulfilled. 4

The ultimate impact of gesture is the sound it creates. Informal observation reveals that many conductors have the ability to use purely technical gestures, and obtain barely a minimal level of success. This lack of proficiency in displaying and evoking expression hinders the ensemble from truly reaching its potential, however. Although a conductor may have spent time mastering the score through recordings, hours at the keyboard, and in rehearsal, he is unable to communicate to the ensemble his or her image of the sound or the composer’s intent. 5

Although able to perform maturely on the musical instrument they have studied for years, a beginning conductor’s physical representation of the music is more elementary and

4 Alan Lee Baker, “Creating Conductors: An Analysis of Conducting Pedagogy in American Higher Education” (DMA dissertation, Stanford University, 1992), 64. 5 Joel F. Plaag, “An Overview of and Recommendations on Expressivity in Conducting Pedagogy” (DMA dissertation, University of Houston, 2006), 7.

3 reflects his or her brief conductor education (Chapman, 2008) and an immature use of the body as a medium for expression.

Need for Study

Conducting pedagogy has identified the challenge of transitioning from artistic sound to artistic movement and has responded with a call to examine disciplines outside of conducting, such as mime, theater and dance (Baker, 1992). In response, several studies delved specifically into using Rudolf Laban’s movement theories in conducting courses while other studies used

Laban’s theoretical framework to assess a conductor’s movement (Benge, 1996; Gallops, 2005;

Grechesky, 1986; Haynes, 1994; Sousa, 1988; Toney, 2000). Laban’s system of movement analysis is entrenched in dance training, but it is also used to examine bodily movement in other areas such as industry, acting, and therapy.

Thus far, conducting world’s use of Laban’s theories is basic and does not approach the more advanced and creative methodology for teaching virtuosic movement used by the dance world. 6 Hibbard’s (1994) summation of Laban’s theories stands out as an exception. As an undergraduate dance minor, she clearly understands Laban’s concept of Effort Qualities and how they can be combined to create what Laban calls, Action Drives. Of the works examined for this project, all except Gambetta (2005) focus on the labels Laban used to describe a portion of his movement theory called Action Drives : punch, slash, dab, tap, glide, float, etc. The deeper meanings of these words reside in Laban’s theory behind them, not in each word’s descriptive semantic. For example, Laban’s theoretical term “slash” represents three attitudes toward a movement: an attitude of suddenness toward the sense of time, an attitude of indirectness toward

6 Aubin’s dissertation (2010) is based entirely on implementing Rudolf Laban’s theories in conducting pedagogy, but Laban’s written works are not cited in the bibliography as a source of research.

4 the sense of space, and an attitude of strength toward the sense of weight (Hibbard, 1994). The word, “slash,” does not instruct as to Laban’s theories behind the word. Instead it invokes a choreographed motion not unlike a conductor’s beat pattern. If Laban’s labels for the Action

Drives are to serve as a creative tool for conducting, it is in deciding which components of each

Action Drive best represent the musical imagery. The efficacy of using Laban’s Action Drives on beginning conductors is well documented, but the findings are misrepresented since a new conductor’s repertoire of creative movement is quite limited; any creative help in this regard is a step forward and shows positive results. The verbal images for Laban’s Action Drives at least inject some creativity into the conducting curriculum among the more objective tasks that are traditionally taught. Yet, by teaching the superficial labels for the Action Drives , students are merely adding a choreographed action to their movement repertoire.

The art of dance relies on creative movement to convey an abstract idea or emotion to an audience. Although conducting pedagogy has begun to draw from the pedagogy of dance, it remains peripheral and largely limited to a simplistic understanding of Laban’s theories. Dance pedagogy focuses on generating creative movement and spends much more time developing creative and healthy movement. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dance majors will typically study Laban’s theory for only one semester in their freshman year; an apt parallel is a freshman music-major studying entry-level music theory. Although music theory certainly informs a musical performer, the final creative goal is much more than a presentation of a music theory system. The same could ideally be said for conducting. Laban’s theories may be a starting point for young conductors, but regarding movement, our final goals can be much more ambitious–to create a work of art using skillful movement that invoke musical expression.

5 With each of the Laban-based studies concluding that advanced training in expressive movement would benefit conducting students, this study will contribute to conducting pedagogy by looking more deeply into Laban’s theories and examining the broader design of dance pedagogy. It is hoped that new methods for teaching expressive conducting movement can be found.

The questions that will be answered are:

1) What is dance’s history in higher education and how does that influence the instruction

of expressive movement?

2) What is the curriculum for a dance major, and how do dance’s core subjects enhance

the education of expressive movement?

3) How can dance’s pedagogy and history enhance conducting pedagogy and improve

creative leadership on the podium through movement?

6 CHAPTER TWO

Literature Review

The debate between program music and absolute music has been raging for hundreds of years. Is metaphor an inseparable part of the musical experience or does music have its own inherent aesthetic value? Regardless of one’s opinion, the moment a conductor steps onto the podium, an abstract icon, or visual metaphor, has been introduced to the music making process.

Silence is used to coordinate and inspire sound. While this metaphor is undeniable, the role of the conductor and their training has been debated.

In its relatively brief history, the conducting profession has developed from conductors at their keyboards, to the concertmaster’s bow, to the beating of a staff on the floor or podium, to a heroic, baton-wielding musical force of late Romanticism, second only to the composer. Alan

Baker (1992) examined the history of conductor education and noticed the educations of conductors made a significant shift into the world of higher education after World War II. Baker explains that colleges and universities at this time were quickly adding disciplines to their curriculum. The scientific model of the universities thrived on objective observations and teaching methods. As a result, conducting training went from an apprentice model to a method where conducting tasks were isolated so they could be objectively defined and taught. This is what we consider “traditional” conductor pedagogy today. This method addresses the transitional awkwardness from instrument to podium by teaching beat patterns and conventions to manage a variety of organizational situations: fermati , tempo changes, etc. When looking at conducting textbooks in this historical context, it is easy to see the scientific model’s scalpel probing and dissecting each component of conducting, putting pins in the abdomen of each technique so that

7 it can be studied in absence of other components. Baker posits that as subjective thinking began taking hold in the 1980’s, conductors began questioning the art’s obsession with teaching objective tasks. During academic conducting pedagogy’s brief history several debates have arisen: What is the role of the conductor? How does a conductor acquire these necessary skills?

Is it even possible to learn how to conduct?

According to Ronald Gallops (2005), “Conductors translate these perceived musical meanings into visual representations that are, in turn, perceived by performers through an implicit mutual social agreement. This social agreement may be referred to as a musician- conductor perception contract .” 7 Although common organizational movements have been gradually incorporated into conducting’s movement vernacular over the decades, not all movements function with a social contract of understanding. In modern dance the audience is allowed to gather meaning from the motions, colors, lighting and sound created on-stage without a preconceived contract. In the same way, an effective conductor is not simply creating prescribed representations of their aural vision as Gallops suggests. Instead the conductor is trying to communicate that vision in a continually changing landscape of syntax and delivery. As

Baker encouraged in his work, this requires a conductor to find the principals of expressive movement. Much work has already been done in that regard in the world of dance. If the conductor’s role cannot be agreed upon, can they be trained and, if so, how?

Stokowski, one of the early master conductors, believed, “Conductors are born, not made.” 8 During the Romantic era’s worship of genius, this view flourished. No formal training for conductors existed at the time, so those instrumentalists that were physically gifted in

7 Ronald Wayne Gallops, “The Effect of Conducting Gesture on Expressive-Interpretive Performance of College Music Majors.” (PhD dissertation, University of South Florida, 2005), 10. 8 Leopold Stokowski, Music for All of Us ( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943), 217.

8 movement seemed to descend from a magical place and those moving less naturally reinforced the sense that only exceptional people “had it.” Since Stokowski was not as proficient a conductor at age 15 as he was at the height of his career, the evidence for growth and learnability far exceeds this notion. Stokowski’s comment is perhaps more a commentary on his abilities as a pedagogue.

Brian David Runnels (1992) examined the conducting pedagogy of 64 Midwest universities to determine common practices in a six-state area. His literature review stresses the great difficulty in teaching the art of conducting and he hints at a division between the art of conducting (emotional or expressive content) and the science of conducting (basic technique) 9.

Ironically, Runnels’s survey focuses on the objective tasks of conducting such as beat patterns and never inquires of the method used to teach movement in conducting programs, and certainly not creative movement. The art of conducting is never addressed. The absence of attention to the body’s role in delivering the art and science of conducting may belie the reason some have found conducting to be a mysterious and unteachable subject.

Alexander Treviño (2008) addressed the challenges a beginning conductor faces when translating aural images into movement. He examined the effectiveness of using an aural model for score study on the expressivity of a conductor’s movement. He found that students using recordings to prepare for conducting significantly outperformed the control group that studied in silence. The group studying with an aural model performed almost as well when asked to conduct in silence, without the recording. The control group seemed to be inhibited when conducting to a recording as opposed to performing in silence. The surprising results of

Treviño’s study strongly reinforce the challenge a conductor faces; that of translating sound into

9 Brian D. Runnels, “Practices in the Teaching of Instrumental Conducting at the Undergraduate Level Among Colleges and Universities in the Upper Midwest.” DMA diss. (University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1992), 46.

9 movement. The group with a clearer internal aural image displayed a greater expression of movement.

Merry Carol Spencer (2000) noticed that conducting textbooks list musicianship as an essential component of a conductor but avoid addressing what is meant by the word,

“musicianship.” 10 Spencer addresses this deficit by examining the nature of creativity, musicianship, and current pedagogical research in order to suggest new paradigms for conducting pedagogy. A common definition for creativity was difficult to isolate, but Spencer cites work by Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi, and Gardner that says:

The meaning that is of primary interest to us here is creativity as the achievement of something remarkable and new, something which transforms and changes a field of endeavor in a significant way. In other words, we are concerned with the kinds of things that people do that change the world. 11

Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi, and Gardner divide creativity into three layers of processes that intertwine: domain, field, and the individual . The domain is a body of knowledge around a certain subject, such as conducting pedagogy. The field refers to those who can have an effect on a given domain. In music this can refer to musicians, historians, theorists, etc. The individual is the human part of the process. In these contexts Feldman identifies three interacting systems necessary for creativity to take place: reflection, transformational imperative, and the desire for change. Spencer summarizes:

...Creativity is mostly about transformation. Transformation exists on every level of Feldman, Csikszentmihaly, and Gardner’s framework. It is as a process where the individual participates in and strives to master, or change, a domain (a body of knowledge). The field (or all other participants of that domain) determines if the individual is recognized and deserving of the label “unique,” ‘innovative,” or “creative.”

10 Merry Carol Spencer, “Conducting Pedagogy: Teaching Through Musicianship.” DMA diss. (University of Oklahoma, 2000), 37. 11 Spencer, 40; quoted in David Henry Feldman, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Howard Gardner, Changing the World: A Framework for the Study of Creativity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1994), 1.

10 Eventually, the domain itself is changed by the determination of the field, only to undergo the same process. 12

To the point of this discussion, master conductors use their individual creativity to instill change on the domain , or composition, and the field, or musicians. The ensemble will decide whether the conductor’s work is worthy to change the domain , or expression of a composition. The conductor that lacks creativity will accept the score only as notes and rhythms rather than a series of problems where the mass of information must change to be transformed into sound.

Spencer examines the theories of Howard Gardner and the philosophies of Elliot Eisner,

David Elliott, and Bennett Reimer to derive a definition of musicianship. Most importantly, all four support the ability to develop and teach musical understanding. Spencer found common threads among the four opinions:

Gardner and Elliott consider musicianship to be a way of thinking. It is problem-solving, problem-finding, context specific, and procedural. Gardner and Elliott represent the idea that people do, in fact, think musically. Eisner and Reimer are more concerned with the meanings that people are able to secure from musical forms. They stand for the idea that music is a unique form of expression, and that musicianship is the ability to participate in the meaningful qualities of the art. People think, then express themselves musically.

I contend that both views are true and that the threads intersect as a person gains mastery of skills in a domain. As people experience and express more, they are able to think in that domain without translation of symbols, language, or context. 13

Conductors have the added challenge of gaining experience to think simultaneously in music and in movement. While many conducting students have spent hours honing their ability to think music through their instrument, they are given few opportunities to improve their ability to conceive adequate movement. Spencer believes that before a young conductor addresses technique they must first become superb musicians which she defines as a four-part cyclical

12 Spencer, 48. 13 Spencer, 67.

11 process: discerning beauty, construing and conveying meaning, problem solving, and acting/performing. 14

The culmination of Spencer’s work identifies nine areas in conducting pedagogy that need attention and change: assessment, creating context, sequence of skills, score study, turning the score into a physical image, technical function, practicing the art, channeling teaching to varied learning styles, designing creative problem-solving lessons 15

In addressing the fifth item, “turning the score into a physical image,” Spencer recognizes the lack of integration of movement in conducting texts, where movement is stressed at the beginning of the teaching sequence and overlooked in the overall expressive nature of the music. 16 Spencer implores, “...conducting pedagogy must adopt the practice of incorporating physical movement in such a way that develops the internal image of the music (a score in its entirety gained through analysis as described earlier) and assists the conductor with physically expressing that image.” She outlines the following illustration of this concept in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Developing and Sharing the Internal Image via Physical Expression 17

Spencer believes that by focusing on small issues such as articulations, conducting pedagogy weakens the development of phrasing and expression of the overall structure of a work. She advocates internalizing and embodying smaller moments before larger units. 18 The practical applications suggested by Spencer are from Jaques-Dalcroze, Sschnebly-Black and

14 Ibid., 74. 15 Ibid., 89. 16 Ibid., 132. 17 Spencer, 134. 18 Ibid., 135.

12 Moore, and Alexandra and Roger Pierce. All three sources are excellent for making relationships between sound and movement, but none address the movement skills and theories required to create movements that represent a conductor’s decisions. In other words, the movements created from these exercises begin to translate sound into motion but they do not instruct the student to discern quality in movement or discern which movements or physical patterning may be inhibiting a musical idea.

In “Practicing the Art,” or item seven above, Spencer clearly advocates using physical movements to make committed decisions about the music. After the aural image is conceived, practice must address both cognitive and kinesthetic issues. She also suggests imagining the physical presence of the ensemble. In summarizing the skills needed in the conducting curriculum, Spencer lists expressive movement first, “Because conducting is expression through movement, expressive movement (as a structural idea) should be the first set of skills and experiences taught.” 19 She believes that expressive movement can develop an internal image of the score, can assist in expressing that image, and can deepen the desire to express musical thought. To accomplish this primary goal, Spencer suggests using the work of Jacques-Dalcroze, kinetic phrasing, and Rudolf Laban. 20 Laban’s theories are only briefly discussed and focuses on the threefold combinations of Effort Qualities . Spencer builds her conducting pedagogy framework from expressive movement, followed by addressing the aural image, then technical function (teaching students how to manifest the musical events in music), repertoire, and finally, styles and performance practice.

19 Spencer, 178. 20 Spencer describes kinetic phrasing at length, 136-149, as embodying the structure and substructure of phrases using the entire body.

13 Although Spencer supports expressive movement as a primary element in the conducting curriculum, she is not considering skillful movement, only creative movement. An apt comparison that exposes the weakness of this understanding would be a creative instrumentalist who lacks skill or technique. His/her music is indeed engaging, but would be more compelling if creative and skillful playing could be achieved simultaneously.

After the National Association of Schools of Music ruled that all collegiate music students must receive training in conducting, Ann Porter (2000) created a conducting course for music students not majoring in music education. She intended the course to be taught parallel to a traditional course for music education majors but her class met only twice per week while the traditional course, taught by a different professor, met five times per week. Porter used the same text as the traditional course, but her course focused immediately on facial expression and eye contact. Porter tested the two classes three times over the semester long course. For the first test, her class was allowed to use only the face and eyes. After the first Test Checkup, where both traditional and experimental classes conducted, experts evaluated the two classes and found that

Porter’s class was rated slightly higher for expressivity than the traditional class. The rating was reversed in later testing, but the disparity between total class time was a likely cause. The results imply that non-traditional, and specifically expressive, conductor education is a viable method of instruction.

Jeremy Manternach (2009), in his study of the impact a conductor’s head and shoulder movement can have on upper body movement, examined several neuroscience studies that suggested humans have an instinct to mimic the movement of others. One such study by

14 Chartrand and Bargh (1999) discovered a type of “chameleon effect.” 21 In the first phase of their study two people acted covertly as an experimental stimulus on thirty-five other human subjects. One of the two stimulators would meet with one of the subjects and begin to either 1) rub his or her face, or 2) shake her or his foot. A second covert stimulator would replace the first stimulator and exhibit the motion the first had not chosen. Results showed that all thirty-five subjects tended to imitate the covert stimulus, regardless of the person stimulating or choice of motion (rubbing the face or shaking the foot). The second phase of Chartrand and Bargh’s experiment involved a similar scenario, but the person serving as the experimental stimulus would mimic the inadvertent movements of the unsuspecting subject. The second covert participant assumed a neutral position and did not mimic the subject. Subjects were then given surveys assessing their appreciation of their survey partners. The research found subjects felt a stronger affinity for the covert participant who mimicked their own actions. Manternach’s own study confirmed similar findings with his subjects. He found that when a conductor added upward head movement to an upward gesture, participants moved their heads more. When the conductor added an upward shoulder movement to an upward gesture, participants moved their shoulders more.

Manternach’s study strongly suggests a subconscious tendency toward mimicry and that conductors must be careful to exemplify their desired musical effect and not a movement that would induce the opposite. The most obvious example would be the conductor verbally demanding a piano dynamic and then conducting with large gestures or small hand gestures that are infused with strength and intensity. As further evidence, David McNeill (1992), in his book

Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought, describes that when gesture and speech

21 Jeremy N. Manternach, “The Effect of Conductor Head and Shoulder Movement and Preparatory Gesture Direction on Upper Body Movement of Individual Singers” (MM dissertation, University of Kansas, 2009), 14.

15 are in conflict, gesture wins. So the question may not be whether mastery of gesture affects musical performance, but is it essential to musical performance.

Gary Sousa (1988) recognized a lack of data to support a common understanding amongst conducting texts regarding what makes a conductor successful. He attempted to objectively identify conducting emblems and study their interpretations by instrumental performers. He uses the word emblems with the following definition from a study by Ekman and

Friesen (1972):

Emblems are those nonverbal acts (a) which have a direct verbal translation usually consisting of a word or two of a phrase, (b) for which this precise meaning is known by most or all members of a group, class, subculture, or culture, (c) which are most often deliberately used with the conscious intent to send a particular message to the other person(s), (d) for which the person(s) who sees the emblem usually not only knows the emblem’s message but also knows that it was deliberately sent to him, and (e) for which the sender usually takes responsibility for having made that communication. 22

Sousa’s research questions have an impact on conducting pedagogy:

1) What are the specific nonverbal conducting gestures commonly used by and taught to instrumental conductors to communicate musical concepts? 2) Do these musical conducting gestures have precise meanings and common interpretations among instrumental performers? 3) Which of these gestures can be considered musical conducting emblems? 4) Is the ability to interpret the meanings of these musical conducting emblems acquired over a period of time by instrumental performers (i.e., during the elementary, secondary, or collegiate period of instrumental study), or are they common gestures whose meanings are understood by all levels of instrumental performers? 23

A panel of experts chose five texts from which to choose specific nonverbal conducting gestures. 24 From these texts and their individual experience, the panel assembled fifty-five gestures that were then video recorded for example in the study. This recording was shown to

22 Gary Donn Sousa, “Musical Conducting Emblems: An Investigation of the Use of Specific Conducting Gestures by Instrumental Conductors and their Interpretation by Instrumental Performers” (PhD diss., The Ohio State University, 1988), 4-5. 23 Ibid., 5-6. 24 The five texts chosen were: The Art of Conducting by Hunsberger and Ernst (1983), Basic Conducting Technique by Labuta (1982), The Conductor’s Wrokshop by Long (1977), The Grammar of Conducting by Rudolf (1950), and The Modern Conductor by Green (1981).

16 middle-school, high school, and college instrumental musicians and each was asked to complete a survey asking if they could identify each gesture. The results revealed that younger, less experienced players struggled to identify the gestures’ meaning, while the more experienced, older students were very successful. Sousa hypothesizes that this disparity among age groups means music students become culturally literate to the emblems of conducting with exposure. A more recent study by Teryl Dobbs (2005) examines phenomena similar to Sousa’s, but from the lens of paralinguistic gesture in school ensembles. Her results reinforce that inexperience impacts the understanding of paralinguistic gestures in the classroom and that paralinguistic gestures are socially constructed. 25

Movement research examined later in this study describes elemental qualities that are innate to various movement parameters. It is interesting that only seven of the fifty-five gestures in Sousa’s study were recognized by 100% of the college musicians. Perhaps the recognized gestures in Sousa’s study more closely embodied innate gestural qualities that transcend culture and experience. The unrecognized emblems may have required cultural interpretations because the intended message did not coincide with the movement’s innate qualities. I believe Sousa’s results demonstrate the subjective nature of conducting and suggests that additional education in skillful movement may create clearer nonverbal messages by conductors. Studies by Hibbard

(1994) and Mayne (1992) also suggest that Sousa’s results could be increased by educating instrumentalists to be more sensitive movers.

Vincent Sidoti (1990) followed Sousa’s research in conducting emblems. Sidoti chose the eight expressions identified by Sousa as emblems and sought to discover if an ensemble’s musical responses to these emblems was affected by expressive versus non-expressive

25 Teryl Dobbs, “Discourse in the Band Room: How Talk Shapes Teaching, Learning, and Community in a Middle School Instrumental Music Classroom” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 2005).

17 conducting, defined here as merely beating time. Sidoti recorded video of himself conducting short melodic excerpts in an expressive manner and then without expression. Next, four high school bands performed the excerpts while watching a television monitor of Sidoti conducting in both styles. A panel of five experts reviewed the audio recordings of the four bands and analyzed their accuracy of performing the expression markings. Sidoti found that in every case the accuracy in performing the eight emblems was enhanced when the conductor performed the emblems expressively. I believe Sidoti’s results imply that musicians are able to perform better with movement that accurately describes the sounds represented in notation. This does not mean that a canon of gestures can be created to align with each expressive marking, just as there is no single way to perform a crescendo. However, a crescendo has an elemental definition of increasing volume and, arguably, intensity. A musician searches for the technique on their instrument that will reveal her/his particular interpretation of crescendo for a specific instance in the music (quality of the air/bow, shaping of the oral cavity, pacing, etc.) What would be the elemental movement principles implying an increase in volume or intensity, and how would the body function to achieve this element? Dance pedagogy addresses the embodiment of artistic choices and has much to offer conducting pedagogy in understanding the elements and techniques inherent to expressive movement.

Sidoti’s research is flawed in his use of the term expression. He defines expression in his study as legato, staccato, crescendo, diminuendo, fermata, accelerando, ritardando, and marcato . These are certainly tools a composer uses in an attempt to communicate to the performer but the composer is not merely trying to express “crescendo-ness” or “staccato-ness.”

The term expression in Sidoti’s study continues to rely on objective goals, where speeding up or getting louder is the goal and accuracy, rather than expressiveness, was the metric for success. If

18 expression is understood as a subjective term, the goals of a conductor will be to physically synthesize complex expressive ideals and portray the sensations a composer intends–perhaps a sense of impetuousness, of reluctance, or of rage.

Dennis Silkebakken (1988) discovered that audiences have a higher opinion of performances where the conductor exhibits more expression and better movement, regardless of aural reality and observer background. He recorded fifteen high school band directors conducting a prerecorded sample of the same music. A panel of five conducting experts then viewed the video to rate the enhancing or detracting quality of each conductor’s visual performance. The three conductors receiving the highest ratings and the three with the lowest were used for further evaluation in the study. These six recordings were viewed by a larger group of observers, consisting of undergraduate non-music majors, undergraduate music majors, average concertgoers, and successful school and college band directors. Each observer rated each of the six conductors in fifteen different categories to answer Silkebakken’s three research questions:

How do individual conductor visual attributes relate to the evaluation of the overall visual effect?

Are the individual attributes perceived differently from the rear or front? Are those attributes designated by experts as either “enhancing” or “detracting” from a conductor’s effectiveness perceived differently by different observer groups?26

Silkebakken found that results varied, with expressiveness being the only decisive factor in observers’ ratings of overall effect. This study also implies that distracting movements made by a conductor might diminish the impression of a musical performance.

Marta McCarthy (2006) posits that human beings cannot separate themselves into sections. Thus, teaching conducting or any subject in such a compartmentalized manner is

26 Dennis L. Silkebakken, “The Effect of Conductor Visual Attributes on the Observer’s Evaluation of Conducting Performance,” (PhD diss., The University of Oklahoma, 1988), 9.

19 counterintuitive to the expressive human as a whole. McCarthy states, “In conducting, just as in dance, movement is foundational to the experiences. The movement of conducting is meant to evoke music–it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Yet the movement itself remains a fundamental aspect of the experience.” 27 McCarthy performed a phenomenological study of her own and five additional conductors’ experiences turning sound into gesture. The five conductors’ backgrounds varied from conducting master’s degree candidates to one of Canada’s most celebrated orchestral conductors. She extensively interviewed each conductor for his or her innermost thoughts during the score study, rehearsal, and performance processes. She focused her efforts on the ears, hands, eyes, and breath because of the frequency and importance with which her subjects spoke of these physical factors. After gathering this massive amount of qualitative data, she discovered four themes among the five conductors:

1) Temporality–the experience of time and tempo is highly personalized and may be influenced by the experience of connection with the ensemble. 2) Spatiality–the personal experience of time affects the way the conductor experiences moving through space. The space of gesture is analogous to musical space and for some, analogous to the psychological, emotional, and spiritual space of interpersonal connection. 3) Corporeality– we internalize, and process into our own conducting gesture, influences from the conducting of significant mentors. We also tend to internalize external views of our own conducting, and objectify our own body and our gesture...Conducting gesture may consist of embodying the sound, or using gesture to evoke sound, or a combination of influences, musical and otherwise, upon the conductor’s conception of the sound, and the physical manifestation of gesture. 4) Relationality– the conductor relates to the ensemble members, through gesture, both as individuals and as a community. The conductor envisions him/herself as a critical link and an agent of cohesion in the chain that binds the ensemble members. 28

McCarthy noted the impact her study has on conducting pedagogy:

When deciding on approaches to teaching-and-learning musicianship and/or conducting, music educators should consider that even among the six conductors in this study, there

27 Marta McCarthy, “Sound Into Gesture: A Study of Conductors’ Experience” (PhD. dissertation, University of Toronto, 2006), 10. 28 McCarthy, 299-300.

20 was considerable variance in the way each conductor experiences musical elements such as tempo, pitch, and tone, and in how he/she learns and remembers music. Therefore, we should use a variety of approaches and...we should give careful consideration to the lived experience of gesture and to “the stratum of intuitive awareness” 29 that attends that experience. 30

Considering students’ diverse approaches to internalizing sound and equally diverse methods of physically manifesting their aural images, a varied and exploratory atmosphere is necessary in the conducting classroom to effectively serve each student.

The similarity between Laban’s theories (body, effort, shape, space, Kinesphere, time) and McCarthy’s findings (temporality, spatiality, corporeality, relationality) are immediately noticeable. McCarthy separates her views from Laban’s by giving greater weight to the use of eyes, hands, ears, and breath in communication on the podium. Unfortunately, McCarthy includes relatively little information regarding Laban or dance pedagogy. Though one book co- authored by Laban is cited in McCarthy’s bibliography, she does not mention or define any of

Laban’s work.

Hubert Toney (2000) studied the conducting approach of a revered conductor and pedagogue, Donald Schleicher. Through a qualitative analysis of Toney’s observations and interviews, three principles emerged: using scholarly knowledge to increase understanding; communicating musically through gestures and intensity; creating collaborative music making. 31

Toney (2000) addresses the second point more vividly, “If the conductor has studied the score well enough to develop an aural image of the composition, then his gestures, facial expressions, and body movements can accurately represent the music visually.” 32 The problem

29 Here McCarthy is quoting from T. Clifton’s book, Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). 30 McCarthy, 309. 31 Hubert Toney Jr., “Expressive Ensemble Conducting and Performing: A Qualitative Case Study of One Conductor’s Practice” (PhD diss., University of illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2000), 246. 32 Ibid., 247.

21 with this comment is not everyone has the body control skills necessary for creating a clear movement metaphor of an internal aural image. Toney claims, “Another unique characteristic about Schleicher’s practice is that he realizes how much a conductor’s gestures can affect an ensemble’s performance both positively and negatively.” Neither Toney or Schleicher suggest a method of improving in this regard. Instead, in the section dedicated to Schleicher’s method of

“Communicating Through Gesture and Intensity,” Toney merely cites fifteen catchphrases

Schleicher is known to say during conducting seminars. Some examples are, “Be an instigator of the music,” “Show the inside beats,” and “Show movement.” 33

Daniel Bonner (2009) compiled qualitative descriptions of two choral conductors, Gary

Bonner, and Rodney Eichenberger. Both conductors’ journeys to nonverbal awareness were primarily self discovery, though Eichenberger had some experience in Laban, Alexander

Technique, and Dalcroze. Through several informal experiments, Gary Bonner developed a philosophy that echoes other movement theories. Daniel Bonner describes, “At the heart of

[Gary] Bonner’s conducting philosophy is the notion that a great conductor needs to exhibit

‘Space, Energy, Freedom, and Motion.’” 34 It is noted that the descriptions of Gary Bonner’s stance and crescendo gesture are centered in the torso and grows and shrinks from there. Daniel

Bonner’s work is primarily an exposition of Gary Bonner’s nonverbal conducting techniques that prescribes movements for isolated events rather than a scholarly study of nonverbal techniques.

Several researchers have examined traditional conducting pedagogy. Haynes (1994) performed an exhaustive inquiry into textbooks to investigate instructions on nontechnical or expressive gestures. He claims, “Although numerous prescriptions are made that imply

33 Ibid., 106-107. 34 Daniel Judd Bonner, “Non-verbal Language, Gesture, and the Choral Conductor.” (DMA dissertation, Claremont Graduate University, 2009), 48.

22 nontechnical communication, it is rare to find theory or explanation connected to it.” 35

Chapman (2008) recognized the near absence of instruction regarding the left hand and facial expression in conducting textbooks. To address this he interviewed six instructors of undergraduate conducting classes from a variety of college and universities. These interviews focused on the instructor’s inclusion of left hand and facial expressions into their curricula.

Chapman also surveyed fifty-three collegiate conducting professors and asked similar questions about including left hand and facial expression in their undergraduate conducting courses. The survey contained questions about inclusion of alternate teaching methods such as Laban, mime, acting, and technology. Through these two instruments he makes several suggestions for improved conducting pedagogy, including the use of Dalcroze, Laban, mime, and theater studies.

He concludes that while left hand gestures and facial expressions are shown to increase expressivity and are recognized as important, many conductors do not teach them sequentially.

Bartee (1977) was the first to point to the relationship and value that dance has with conducting. Through coursework in acting and mime he was introduced to the teaching of

Rudolf Laban. Bartee researched three questions in his study: the idea of tonal motion by

Susanne Langer; Laban’s analysis of body movement which he called Effort/Shape; the implications of Laban’s theories on a conductor’s concept of tonal motion.

Bartee (1977) cites Langer regarding her theory of tonal motion and the human experience, “All the expressive gesticulations of the conductor is really a dance... all music is dancing...” 36 Bartee’s groundbreaking work recognized the following implications of Laban’s

35 Glenn Alan Haynes, “Non-technical Communication in Conducting and its Presentation in Selected Textbooks” (D.M.A. dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994), 101. 36 Neale King Bartee, “The Development of a Theoretical Position on Conducting using Principles of Body Movement as Explicated by Rudolf Laban.” (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois-Champaign, 1977), 39.

23 Effort/Shape for conductors wishing to realize their aural imaging through movement: (a)

Laban’s Effort/Shape analysis system is a viable means of observation and assessment of body movement; (b) movement is a manifestation of the inner being of man[ sic ]; (c) body movement, in and of itself, is a conscious means of communication; (d) movement-thinking integrates the inner world of impulses with physical expression in movement; (e) education in the concepts and techniques of Effort/Shape improves one’s movement capabilities in the following areas: awareness, range of expressive movements, selectivity, effort balance, and economy of effort; (f)

Laban’s concept of the Kinesphere is a valuable aid in orienting the body in space; (g) the body and its limbs are able to execute certain Effort Patterns more naturally through particular shaping movements than others; (h) the ordering of a movement can be determined by where it originates, and how it relates to other parts of the whole body; (i) single movements are organized in patterns of pathways and sequences or phrases. 37

Bartee also found specific benefits for the conductor studying Laban’s theories:

1) Podium presence. Laban training demonstrates how even unconscious movements support or destroy a conductor’s entire podium presence. Further, awareness in Laban’s theory of Effort/Shape can help the conductor to choose those movements that show authority, strength, balance, and understanding. 2) Efficiency in rehearsal. Communication becomes more efficient with the use of expressive gestures learned through Effort/Shape training. 3) Visibility. Laban training involves the whole body rather than limiting attention to only above the waist as in traditional conductor training. Whole body movements should support all hand and arm motions making the entire body visible for more effective conducting. 4) Clarity. Knowledge of various zones of the Kinesphere give the conductor a more appropriate use of various planes. 5) Awareness of bodily feel for movement. Effort/Shape training makes the conductor more conscious of the feel of his [ sic ] own movements. 6) Range of movement expression. Effort/Shape training gives the conductor a wider vocabulary of expressive movements. 7) Appropriate movement. Using a wider vocabulary of expressive movement, the conductor can select more appropriate movements for a given circumstance.

37 Bartee, 192-193.

24 8) Control. Mastery in Effort/Shape can help the conductor to achieve more control and range of expression concerning his [ sic ] body movements. 9) Economy of motion. The study of Laban’s principles can allow the conductor to achieve the relaxation needed to economize his [ sic ] motions. 10) Creativity. Study concerning the application of Laban’s theories encourages the conductor to develop a wider vocabulary of expressive gestures. 11) Learning. A significant implication of Laban’s work is that expressive body movement can be learned based upon life experiences applied to the movement act. 12) Practice. Since expressive body movement can be learned, it stands to reason that a conductor should devote time to practicing expressive body movement as a technique. 38

One of the first to implement Bartee’s ideas was Stephen Miller (1988) who combined his instruction of traditional conducting methods with concepts of the Laban movement system.

He found that the experimental group showed notable improvement in expressive conducting over the control group. Miller’s study was a first step for implementing dance pedagogy into the conducting curriculum, but several variables confounded the results. Yontz (2001) modified

Miller’s study to further substantiate Miller’s findings. Yontz’s study involved 91 undergraduate music majors from two universities. A control group was instructed over five weeks in six expressive gestures that were identified in a traditional conducting textbook: legato, staccato, tenuto, gesture of syncopation, dead gestures, and preparatory beats. The experimental group was instructed in Laban’s movement principles over the same amount of time and were given the opportunity to use the eight variations of the Laban Effort components: pressing, punching, wringing, gliding, floating, slashing, dabbing, and flicking. A panel of three expert conductors analyzed the results and found that the group instructed in Laban was more expressive than the control group. The problem with this approach to using the Laban theories is that these eight variations of Effort are only a fraction of the larger framework. Laban created these as examples of his vast movement theories, not as finite definitions. Both the six expressive terms and the

38 Ibid., 163-180.

25 eight Laban terms are defining an objective task for students and not advancing artistry or a creative movement theory. Another drawback to this study is that the data were analyzed only by conductors and not by Certified Laban Movement Analysts (CLMA) trained in Laban Movement

Theory. While Yontz’s study indicates that further exploration into alternate conducting pedagogy is warranted, his method necessitated more research.

Joel Plaag (2006) claims that expression should be included at the very beginning stages of conducting training. Plaag studied existing conducting pedagogies and research, dividing the various methods of teaching expressive conducting into three categories: 1) those using pictures, diagrams and models; 2) those using written descriptors and movement theories; 3) those using musical examples. Whereas texts tended to employ only one of these three methods, Plaag advocates the use of all three. Plaag was impressed by the work of Bev R. Henson, who taught beginning conducting as more of a laboratory experience. Henson used no modeling in conducting classes so that students would develop their own technique rather than looking like their instructor. For his original work Plaag surveyed 84 conductors who had performed at the

American Choral Directors Association Convention between 2000 and 2004. Twenty-four responded and the results of the survey demonstrated that “most conducting teachers noted that expression is a high priority, yet few spent much time teaching it in their undergraduate conducting classes, choosing instead in their limited, valuable time to concentrate on basic gestural vocabulary.” 39 Plaag suggests a conducting curriculum that incorporates Laban’s movement theories. He expends substantial effort describing Laban’s history but only two paragraphs explaining the Effort Qualities. He then plunges into Laban’s Action Drives without

39 Joel F. Plaag, “An Overview of and Recommendations on Expressivity in Conducting Pedagogy” (DMA diss., University of Houston, 2006), vii.

26 addressing the nuance that each of the Effort Qualities contributes to an Action Drive. 40 The result is that Plaag’s conducting curriculum, intended to be delivered in parallel with a traditional curriculum, instead relies on the Action Drives alone. Rather than teaching students to explore and draw on Laban’s theories for creative inspiration, Plaag makes direct correlations with the traditional conducting curriculum. For example, conducting marcato articulation is equated with

“punch” and “dab.” 41 The result is an even more complex prescriptive image. In his example exercises he details what the motion of a “punch” should be:

Using your right hand, create a downward, thrusting movement that starts at about the breastbone and traverses to the waist. When it reaches the imaginary line parallel with the waist, let the hand bounce back to the starting point... as you punch keep the fingers slightly curved and the palm parallel to the floor. Make sure the wrist and fingers are somewhat flexible–neither floppy nor rigid. 42

The description above could be an accurate description for one of a multitude of possible motions considered a “punch.” However, by using such a prescriptive definition, the ideal of students exploring their own creative possibilities is lost.

Holt (1991) compared the effects of using the Laban elements of Weight, Flow, Time, and Space with the effects of non-Laban verbal instruction on the performance of high school choirs. Split into two groups, each choir received five hours of either Laban-based or conventional rehearsals on three movements of a larger work. The experimental group was educated in Laban’s Effort elements of Weight, Time, Space, and Flow and encouraged to mark their music with effort symbols and the labels for the eight action drives. At the end of the instruction each choir was recorded performing the three movements. These recordings were submitted to three judges who rated the performances. Holt concludes that using Laban’s

40 Ibid, 63. 41 Plaag, 81-84. 42 Ibid, 88-89.

27 movement concepts created better results than a conventional approach. Although Holt’s results demonstrate that the Laban-instructed group performed more musically than the control group, the results could be due to the introduction of new ideas that stimulate a more creative approach in the performers as opposed to an approach that introduces no creative concepts.

Gambetta (2005) set out to demonstrate that there is a tangible technique of creating sound through movement and that this technique is not an innate gift, but it can be taught. By drawing extensively upon Laban’s original writings, Gambetta’s work thoroughly and accurately describes Laban’s terms, method, and philosophy. His exhaustive efforts in defining Laban’s terminology for conductors presents a clearer picture of Laban’s system and, in commenting on previous studies using Laban in conducting curriculum, Gambetta recognized the possibility for a richer understanding of Laban’s concepts:

While few would argue the benefits of this limited strategy [teaching Laban’s Basic Effort Actions to an experimental group], it neither fully explores nor completely explains the connections between conducting gesture and musical expression. The treatment group instruction tends to limit rather than expand movement choices because it is sometimes restrictive (prescribing a single gesture for a specific musical event) and because the eight Basic Effort Actions address only a minute portion of the expressive movement repertoire conductors need to develop if they intend to communicate effectively with their collaborators. 43

Gambetta (2005) taught Laban movement principles to four conductors of varying levels for five hours. Each participant however, had already experienced at least two semesters of group or private conducting training. Unlike previous studies, Gambetta intentionally avoided teaching anything specific to conducting but instead, isolated instruction to Laban’s movement ideas. The relationship of participants’ movements to various musical parameters was explored but no specific references were made to the music they conducted in their pretest and posttest. In this

43 Charles L. Gambetta, “Conducting Outside the Box: Creating a Fresh Approach to Conducting Gesture Through the Principles of Laban Movement Analysis” (PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005), 17.

28 way, Gambetta was able to reveal the effects of pure movement training on conductors of varying levels of accomplishment.

Gambetta (2005) analyzed his data in three ways. First, the recorded video of participants’ pretests and posttests were analyzed by music experts for increased clarity in the expression of musical ideas. Next, Certified Laban Movement Analysts described changes in the participants’ movement from pretest to posttest. Finally, participants were interviewed regarding their perceived improvement, motivation, and value of the Laban principles for their conducting.

Gambetta found notable improvement in each assessment area. He concluded that improvement can be realized by conductors in a relatively brief exposure to the Laban principles. Gambetta’s study strengthens the premise that movement studies, apart from conducting class, has the potential to improve conductors’ performance.

Running (2008) explores the effect of acting exercises in the training of novice conductors. His four research questions were:

1) Will acting exercises help novice conductors feel more comfortable about conducting? 2) Will novice conductors find acting techniques useful in improving their ability to perform physical conducting gestures? 3) Will studying acting exercises hinder students’ knowledge of traditional conducting patterns? 4) Do acting exercises help novice conductors appear more comfortable, allow for better breathing habits, create better breathing habits, create better connection to an ensemble, move more expressively, and move with greater specificity in the evaluations provided by qualified judges?

Using the Kari Margolis acting method 44 , an experimental group was given acting instruction for four, fifty-minute sessions. Pretests and posttests were analyzed by experts and the participants also completed a questionnaire. The participant questionnaire revealed no major

44 According to Running (2008), Kari Margolis founded a pedagogy for training actors based on embodying force and emotion through physicality. Running states, “This physicality...both inspires and is inspired by a unity of intellect and instinct,” 5.

29 differences between study and experimental group in a perception of increased comfortability on the conducting podium. The expert analysis, however, revealed significant increases in expressivity and in the connection of breath with gesture in the experimental group.

Most interestingly for my study were the language and concepts used in the The Margolis

Method . Importantly, all movement in this method stems from the body’s core and closely related to the core is the breath. The vitality of breath and the core to movement are central themes to several other methods related to movement such as mime (Chapman, 2008),

Feldenkrais, Bartinieff , and Laban. The Margolis Method refers to energy in ways that closely resemble Laban’s concept of Space Effort (direct/indirect), “A conductor can emanate a broad energy (used to motivate a large group or the entire ensemble) or a narrow energy (designed to motivate a single person or small group).” 45 Running interviewed Kari Margolis and explained that no significant, ongoing physical training is common in conducting training. Margolis responded, “If conductors were taught how to inspire the musicians...the end result would be much more rich, beautiful, and fulfilling. Primarily because the musicians would find the experience more fulfilling.” 46

With ample encouragement and evidence that expressive conducting is preferred if not necessary, do additional views exist? Jeremy Koch (2003) writes that the motions of a conductor

“have no value, meaning, or aesthetic potential,” 47 taking a more objective view than his contemporaries. He states, “Although there is an art to the physical act of conducting, it is not itself an art.... Conductors are artists because they conceive and realize music. Their gesture,

45 Donald J. Running, “Conductor as Actor: A Collaborative Method for Training Conductors Through Dynamic Muscularity” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2008), 11. 46 Running, 6. 47 Christopher Jason Koch, “Toward a Theory of Conducting Motion” (DMA dissertation, University of Washington, 2003), 147

30 however, is no more an art than the moving fingers of a pianist or undulating glottis of a vocalist.” 48 Koch thus attempted to dissect the conductor’s movement into quantifiable parameters to create a universal concept of motion for conducting. In the end, he found four basic dimensions to the conductor’s movement: Size–a measure of largeness relative to the physical parameters of the conductor; Spatial Location–the position in space relative to the conductor at which gesture is executed; Shape–gesture’s fundamental geometry which can be reduced to four base forms (arcs, angles, lines, and circles); Velocity–a measure of gesture’s relative speed. 49

Koch combines shape and velocity to create a “velocity profile,” 50 which allows for a precise analysis of any gesture’s motion characteristics. Whereas his study is thorough in its description of motion, Koch pays little attention to previous scholarship in the world of dance.

He cites only three dance-based works, all by the same author.

The resemblance of Koch’s (2003) work to Laban’s work is unmistakable (Kinesphere,

Time Effort, Body-Shape, Weight-Effort), but Koch’s definitions ignore the possibility that the performer’s attitudes and intent may be communicated through the physical movement.

Although Koch’s work pays close attention to mechanical movement and its sonic results, he ignores the possibility that a conductor’s goal from movement might be something more ephemeral than speeding up, playing louder, etc. Laban’s system appears to be much more flexible to encompass a variety of goals and possibilities in movement.

Timothy Benge’s (1996) study directly contradicts Koch’s perspectives regarding the role of a conductor. In his dissertation, Benge recorded a performance of two conductors, one choral

48 Ibid, 147. 49 Ibid, 148. 50 Ibid, 148.

31 and one band. The silent video was shown to three musicians unfamiliar with the pieces of music recorded, and each was asked to stop the video whenever she/he felt the conductor was showing performers to respond expressively. The three musicians were then asked to describe the way they would imagine responding to the conductor’s action. If all three musicians stopped the video in the same place, that movement was noted and analyzed by a Certified Movement

Analyst. Benge found three implications:

1) Since LMA (Laban Movement Analysis) is clearly applicable to the art of conducting, conducting preparation programs can be strengthened through the infusion of Laban movement training. This integration should be primarily kinesthetic and experiential, with enough theory provided to generate an awareness of movement as a medium for communication. 2) Since music is a feelingful expression, and since expressive conducting can stimulate greater expression and musicianship from student performers, then expressive movement skills are a critical tool for the ensemble conductor/educator and should be developed to the highest possible degree. 3) Expressive movement capability appears to be associated with effective conducting. Therefore, movement training should enhance expressive conducting capability. 51

Summary

Studies by Plaag (2006), Chapmann (2008), and Haynes (1994) support nonverbal communication as a powerful component for a conductor and education in this area provides substantially more effective results than a traditional course. The need for alternate teaching methods is clear. Thus far, studies in conducting have focused on Rudolf Laban, whose work has been applied to a variety of movement arenas from factory workers to music conductors, but has primarily resided in dance. My work examines the connection between dance curriculum and conducting curricula. Interestingly, a dance major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison receives only one semester of Laban training in his or her freshmen year. One semester seems

51 Timothy John Benge, “Movements Utilized by Conductors in Stimulation of Expression and Musicianship” (DMA dissertation, University of Southern California, 1996), 60.

32 brief, considering conducting pedagogy’s exceeding attention to Laban’s Action Drives. This disparity begs the question: What does dance pedagogy employ beyond Laban Movement Theory to create dancers as fully connected, expressive experts in movement? How do dancers acquire the bodily awareness that allows them to clearly portray Laban’s movement theory and other methods? By exploring dance history and pedagogy, this study contributes a more subjective, creative, and healthy approach to the conducting field.

33 CHAPTER THREE

Dance Pedagogy in Higher Education

The creative process is a cooperative activity of the intellect, in constructing form; of the emotions, the motivating force for expression; of the body, whose active joints (the skeletal instrument) and muscles (the movement medium) furnish the materials for the organized external form; and finally of that intangible aspect of human personality, the spirit, which animates these activities with greater significance. A created dance is born of the personality. In creating external form, the personality is expanded in achieving a form of expression and communication. Thus the personality is active in its entirety. –Margaret H’Doubler 52

Telling the history of dance pedagogy is difficult because dance education is both a young discipline and one that lacks depth of scholarly examination. Thomas Hagood (2008) hypothesizes the reason for this being that the legacy of dance pedagogy lives in a dancer’s body rather than in written form:

The act of educating in and through dance is an ephemeral thing. In many cases, it is individually interpreted, vanishes even as it is provided and seems to resist all efforts to quantify or measure its efficacy. It is not preserved in scores or within frames and its artifacts do not consume too much space in the stacks of the college library. Books and media help preserve ideas, pedagogies, histories, and concerts, but still, dance is most commonly preserved and held on to through, between and among bodies and bodies come and go, they live and then they die. 53

The legacy of movement in the field of conducting is strikingly similar to Hagood’s description, where mentors’ movements are scrutinized by their students and effective techniques are intentionally and inadvertently assimilated into the next generation’s movements with little research or understanding of the movements’ history. Conducting students do not learn their movements from a book, though directions of left, right, up, and down may be given for things like beat patterns and other objective tasks. Instead, they absorb their mentors’ movements in a

52 Margaret H’Doubler, Dance: A Creative Art Experience (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1998), xxxi. 53 Thomas Hagood, Legacy in Dance Education: Essays and Interviews on Values, Practices, and People (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2008), xviii.

34 lineage of assimilated movement. Dance’s lineage in higher education officially began at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison under Professor Margaret H’Doubler.

Dance/movement pedagogy is a discipline valuable to every human since all people inhabit a body that moves in some way and that has innate understanding. Dance professors recognize the universal benefit to movement study and welcome the task. Margaret Erlanger, a well-known professor at the University of Illinois and a former student of Margaret H’Doubler, states,

Basically, every dance teacher is concerned with proper alignment of the body. We not only want to free the body, but the mind as well. Our students grow in creativity, ideas, thinking–as people! It thrills me to see this growth. Dance is not competition; none of the arts is. It is what happens to an individual that counts. 54

Professor Margie Mains was the pioneer of the University of Wyoming’s dance program. She studied with Margaret H’Doubler and had this to say regarding movement:

My philosophy all the time I have been teaching is the philosophy of Marge H’Doubler. It is that every human being–hopefully and certainly every person who attends college or university–should have the eye opening and mind opening and emotion opening experience of seeing what it is, how it feels, how it works, how it enriches, to learn how one may express themselves through movement. This is an experience for all people regardless of their size, their weight, their body build, their race, their religion. It is a thing that should be for everyone. 55

Recently, conducting pedagogy has explored more subjective movement opportunities using material from Rudolf Laban, but most of those studies maintain a close affinity with objective or prescribed movement. So while much more scholarship on conducting pedagogy has occurred in the past twenty years, the history of movement for conductors parallels the legacy of dance education in that it resides in the bodies of current practitioners. In other words, while

54 Hagood, 68, quoting Margaret Erlanger from a 1967 interview with Carol Mekshes in the Champaign-Urbana Courier, 1967 (p. 30). 55 Hagood, 91, quoting Margaret Elizabeth Small Mains from a 1987 interview for the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD) Oral History Project (2007),375.

35 conducting pedagogy has recently looked outside itself for insight, conducting pedagogy continues movement training that perpetuates its own unique movement heritage. It stands to reason that a close examination of the living history of dance education might produce new insights for conductors. Since dance education focuses exclusively on the art of movement and conductor education focuses primarily on the art of sound, it is conceivable that dance education might offer more effective methods for educating bodies to move expressively and healthily than current conducting methodology. Reading within dance pedagogy for intelligent training of the body promises to deepen conducting pedagogy’s concept of movement, but conductors must then take the next step of embodying the concepts. If conducting hopes to grow toward a more advanced expression, I believe it must adopt dance pedagogy’s expertise into its own movement legacy.

The process of training the professional dancer did not originally reside within higher education. At the beginning of the 20th century, dance education existed in the studio, where strict mimicry was the standard practice. Even as modern dance emerged from ballet, instruction was focused on copying the dance master. So it was in this climate that a young professor from the Women’s Physical Education Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Margaret

H’Doubler, 56 was charged to discover a method of teaching dance that was “worthy of a young woman’s time.” 57 Margaret H’Doubler established the first dance major at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison in 1926 by focusing on dance as the conceptual science of movement. Her scientific approach fit well within the physical education department where she taught, but her philosophy of dance’s role in society was much more subjective. She believed dance education

56 Pronounced “Doh-bluhr”, with the “H” silent. 57 Blanche Trilling, quoted in Janice Ross, Moving Lessons: Margaret H’Doubler and the Beginning of Dance in American Education (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 112.

36 existed to develop the creativity of the individual. As a result, the process of each student’s progress was much more important than the final product or presentations of dances as performances. Her pioneering program soon became the standard for dance programs throughout college and university physical education departments around the country. 58

Ideals must endure the scrutiny of time and peers; H’Doubler’s philosophy about the life- long benefits of training in individualized intelligent movement was no exception. Martha Hill shared H’Doubler’s passion for dance education but Hill, being struck by the professional dancing methods of Martha Graham, believed there was a place for training professional dancers in the college and university curriculum. As a professor at Bennington College in Vermont

(1934-1942), Hill ushered in a new philosophy of dance education that placed dance on a par with the other performing arts–music, visual arts, and theater. According to Hill’s philosophy, dancers were to be instructed in choreography, artistic forms, and participate in virtuosic dance productions. As dance became recognized as its own art form, it no longer fit as neatly into the mission of physical education departments. Dance instructors who were previously trained to teach dance among other athletic disciplines like basketball and tennis, resisted the change. Hill’s ideals gathered support, creating a new problem. Many of the dance instructors exposed to the latest professional choreography at Hill’s workshops copied the movements blindly with little understanding, and they brought them back to their own classrooms with limited success. The philosophical pendulum had swung to the opposite extreme of H’Doubler’s development of individual creativity for a life-time of self-expression. Where Hill’s movement helped dance achieve its own departmental status on campuses across the U.S., Alma Hawkins would steer

58 Gertrude E. Johnson, quoted in H’Doubler, Dance: A Creative Experience, xviii.

37 dance’s course between H’Doubler’s and Hill’s approaches toward a balanced philosophy of dance education. 59

Hawkins had opportunities to study at both Wisconsin with H’Doubler and at Bennington with Hill, but rather than take sides, she bridged the gap between the H’Doubler-Hill divide to form a cohesive movement among dance professionals. Hawkins’ 1954 dissertation examined the direction of dance and its history and asked vital questions of dance’s role in higher education relative to other disciplines. Hagood (2008) cites Hawkins’ keynote address at the

1965 “Dance as a Discipline” conference as a landmark presentation in dance education. Hagood believes the presentation set the course for the profession by posing questions about dance’s purpose in higher education and suggesting several areas for improvement. 60 Hawkins’ suggestions for curriculum are especially applicable to conducting pedagogy. She writes:

It seems to me that the body of knowledge which provides the framework for the dance major and the foundation for teaching must include the following areas of study: a. Movement principles and skills b. Principles of choreography c. Music for dance d. History of dance e. Dance notation f. Philosophy and aesthetics of dance g. Principles of human movement and their application to dance. 61

Conducting pedagogy would do well to consider the components listed above for educating the expressive mover. Movement principles and skills are obvious necessities.

Principles of choreography would not be applicable, although learning to create movement that reflects aural choreography or gestural form of a musical work makes sense. Teaching conductors about music’s relationship to movement from the perspective of the dancer would

59 Hagood, 43. 60 Ibid., 32-33. 61 Hagood, 54.

38 inform their role on the podium as a moving artist who elicits sound. Whereas a formal course on the history of dance might not have a significant impact on a beginning conductor, a course in the history of conducting would help students understand the movement legacy of conductors.

Dance notation holds minimal benefit for the conductor beyond revealing the remarkable detail to which movement can be studied. The philosophy and aesthetic of dance is a rich resource for the conductor since a lack of understanding in the aesthetic principals of dance and movement could inhibit a conductor.

The years that followed Hawkins’ presentation saw the first residency by a professional dance company in higher education 62 ; dancers confronting barriers of racial prejudice (Lynnette

Young Overby); and body prejudice (Helene Scheff). A recent innovation in dance education is the inclusion of dance improvisation in the curriculum. Since conducting requires a constant flow of outgoing information, incoming messages, and internal assessment of information, the conductor’s movement must also be spontaneous reaction, or improvisation, rather than choreography. The work of dance improvisation can be a rich resource for conducting pedagogy.

Margaret H’Doubler

An uncharted field of study is often void of standards and ripe for innovation, so when dance entered higher education at the beginning of the 20th century a pedagogical foundation needed to be laid. 63 A visionary was required to define and defend dance’s role on campus.

Studying this period of dance’s development offers rich rewards for conducting pedagogy because it is in this atmosphere of discovery and self-reflection that the dialogue between

62 Ibid., 61 63 John M. Wilson, Thomas K. Hagood, and Mary Alice Brennan, Margaret H’ Doubler: the Legacy of America’s Dance Education Pioneer: an Anthology (Youngstown: Cambria Press, 2006), 21.

39 generations begins. Whereas instrumental pedagogy gradually developed from the expanding technical necessities demanded by Romantic-era composers, dance entered higher education without a complete understanding of the technical function of their instrument–the body–and unifying principles of dance’s expressive parameters. Dance had existed in the most ancient contexts, but there was a void of understanding as to its composite elements and possibilities. In light of dance’s immature academic landscape, it is no wonder that Margaret H’Doubler’s passion for dance and intelligent scientific approach to dance became the foundation of dance’s home in higher education.

Margaret H’Doubler did not intend to be a leader in dance education. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1910 with a degree in biology and minors in chemistry and philosophy. Her true passion was physical education but there was not yet a major in that subject. Upon graduation she was hired in the newly formed Department of Women’s Physical

Education to teach women’s basketball and baseball. She taught successfully for six years, after which she requested a one year leave to study philosophy and aesthetics at Columbia University

(1916). Her supervisor, Blanche Trilling, told H’Doubler to investigate current dance education methods and teach her discoveries to the women at UW-Madison upon her return. H’Doubler recoiled at the assignment. 64 Upon examining New York’s dance scene she was further put off.

The pedagogies she found involved several aesthetic and “natural” approaches, ballet, and franchised dance education programs. She despised ballet’s use of mimicry and found the modern dance studios making the same errors in pedagogy. 65 H’Doubler commented later:

Whenever I would hear of somebody that was teaching, I would go and try to get in the class to see. And there were some who had broken from ballet. I would talk with them

64 Wilson, Hagood and Brennan, 18. 65 Ibid., 20

40 and they would say, “I don’t know where I am going, I don’t know what this is all about. I just know that I don’t want ballet.” 66

The same comment could be used for many conducting classes, inserting “beat pattern,” for “ballet.” In an effort to get away from beat patterns, conducting pedagogy has explored different avenues without a sure course of what will reap musical results. H’Doubler later was more explicit regarding her early observations:

The so-called dances that came out of such training always seem to be nothing but a stringing together (in an artistic manner) of the technical movements studied. They were without significance. In the few studios where there was a breaking away from this formal technique there was no sound theory or philosophy or reason for what was being done. It was either cultist or a blind imitation of personalities. 67

As conducting seeks to establish a sound theory beyond objective tasks, it can look to the methods already established in dance for rationale, theoretical framework, and practical applications for expressive movement.

After several influential personal encounters with John Dewey, the father of progressive education and professor at Columbia University, H’Doubler searched for dance’s equivalent to the Deweyan ideal of addressing the entire human for life; dance was for life, not just for one performance. 68 She believed that, “sweetness and light,” could be made as rigorous and socially useful as the traditional academic disciplines. 69

Only a few weeks before her return to Madison, H’Doubler wrote back to her supervisor,

“I shall never teach dance!” 70 Shortly after this letter H’Doubler was referred to a music teacher named Alys Bentley who used movement to teach her piano students. Miss Bentley also asked her students to sing their own compositions. It was in Bentley’s studio that H’Doubler

66 Ross, 115. 67 Ross, 115. 68 Ibid., 123. 69 Ibid., 114. 70 Hagood, 13.

41 discovered the impetus of her revolutionary vision for teaching dance as a creative art. This new dance education method would require a systematic understanding of the science of human movement. 71 She rejected the idea of professionalism in dance but sought instead to continually develop the personal creativity of the dancer. In 1921 she compiled her new found philosophy into a small text entitled, A Manual for Dancing. It stood out at the time because it addressed neuromuscular coordination and motor control rather than focusing on the presentation of dance.

Hagood quotes H’Doubler in speaking about her unique approach to dance education:

This process is a building of movement vocabulary with which the student is meant to later express herself...the student should be so taught that she may give expression to her own reactions, and not those of another. Here, it seems, is where much of the dancing taught, fails almost entirely as an educational activity. It is at best an imitative process, a type of work which does not grow from any creative germ. It is destructive to any stimulus for originality. It is mechanical, an application, not a creation. There should be no imitation or memory, as far as set movements and gestures are concerned. How can there be if we adhere to our definition of dancing–self-expression through movement? 72

The description above, while referring to dance pedagogy, appeals directly to the goals of the conductor on the podium. Resonating further, H’Doubler was committed to developing the creative and expressive possibilities of the individual. In establishing the first collegiate dance curriculum, student coursework included anatomy and kinesiology, fundamental movement skills (technique), historical perspectives (dance history), creative movement (composition), understanding relationships between movement and rhythm (rhythmic analysis), teaching the body to move (teaching methods), and developing an understanding of classic and contemporary thinking on the moving body (dance philosophy). 73 Even H’Doubler’s goals for dance education could be pasted into a conducting curriculum’s goals: Lead the individual to kinesthetic

71 Ibid, 14. 72 Hagood, 15-16. 73 Ibid., 17.

42 awareness; Develop the student’s understanding of movement’s expressive capacities;

Stimulate the creative use of movement in the expression of individually inspired art ideas.

H’Doubler’s philosophy of dance education meshed closely with that of Dewey throughout her life–the process of the art far outweighed the product. Janice Ross claims,

“H’Doubler’s use of Dewey’s ideas gave her approach to dance education a theoretical base that distinguished it from other fledgling attempts to situate dance in higher education. H’Doubler was also distinctive in not focusing on performance and in making the development of self her steady focus.” 74 Dewey’s seminal work, Art as Experience , honors art as interaction rather than as only object. His philosophy connects well with dance, where a lack of permanence engenders a focus on the developmental and experimental nature of its creation and enjoyment. When conductors rehearse large ensembles, this focus can quickly become lost among concert deadlines and the technical difficulties involved in the interpretation of a composer’s intent.

Often a purely spontaneous creation is far from the conductor’s mind. For this reason, Dewey’s and H’Doubler’s educational approach becomes increasingly important as an overarching goal.

By making the ensemble’s process of artistic discovery of the music the primary concern and the concert as an object made secondary, music education and conducting pedagogy might achieve their goals in helping their students grow more musically.

In H’Doubler’s later career, dance education departed from the realm of women’s physical education and gravitated toward preparing the professional artist, aligning more closely with the theater and music departments in higher education. H’Doubler soundly rejected this trajectory but the field of dance did not wait; her legacy of pioneering leadership was forgotten.

Recent dance scholars are revisiting H’Doubler’s work and its value of developing creative

74 Ross, 138.

43 problem solvers in movement. The value of her philosophy for conducting is clear and can serve conducting pedagogy in developing the movement skills musicians need when stepping into the conductor’s world of physical communication.

As Chapter Two demonstrated, research in conducting examined the work of one dance theorist for many years: Rudolf Laban. Laban’s theories have several parallels to H’Doubler’s, such as his intention to scientifically examine movement and to create a framework for viewing and conceptualizing movement. His theories migrated to the United States much later when

Irmgaard Bartinief, Laban’s student, emmigrated in 1936. Laban meticulously described his methodology in several volumes and instilled it into his students such as Bartinieff and Ed Groff.

Margaret H’Doubler did the opposite. She published four short books and “assiduously deflected any attention to her identity as central to the integrity and substance of her methods.” 75 The empirical evidence of her influence was profound, but documentation of her methods is much less.

So what was H’Doubler’s method? How did she imbue profound understanding of objective information in order to develop the subjective individual artist? Due to the lack of primary source material from H’Doubler’s own hand, we must rely on secondary sources to rediscover H’Doubler’s method. Mary A. Brennan, John M. Wilson, Thomas K. Hagood, and

Janice Ross have meticulously researched H’Doubler’s methods through writings, journals, and interviews with former students. As a result of their work, a portrait of a typical H’Doubler lesson can be reconstructed.

75 Hagood, 137.

44 Ross notes that “H’Doubler’s tacit strategy was also to use the mind as a conduit to the body.” 76 Often, class would begin by looking at a skeleton that was present at each lesson.

H’Doubler would ask students to look at various movements of joints and discuss the muscles that caused the movements. Next, students would lie on the floor where gravity’s pull would be diminished, and they would explore the functions they had discussed around the skeleton and muscle charts. H’Doubler would rarely demonstrate herself but would often demonstrate on a student. This exploration on the floor was guided to discover inner emotions associated with their movement. This inner-outer relationship was central to H’Doubler’s belief system:

The body considered as the outer aspect of personality should be given as careful a study, as high a perfection of technique as the associated processes of thought and feeling. The most completely developed individual is the one who has trained all his powers with equal unity and consideration that he may be physically, intellectually and emotionally integrated. 77

To integrate oneself within a group, and to cooperate intelligently with his fellow men, one first must feel the security and self-value which comes from integration within the self. 78

After the floor exploration, students would stand up and H’Doubler would give the class movement problems that required kinesthetic awareness for their solution. Sometimes this would involve blindfolding the class to remove visual stimuli from the equation and heighten their sensitivity to the inward bodily sensations. These creative problems would then develop into dance phrases using the students’ own creations and would be repeated and honed until the students were satisfied that their physical manifestations of their expressive goals were met.

76 Ross, 213. 77 Margaret H’Doubler, “Movement and Its Rhythmic Structure: An Educational Theory of Motor Learning ” (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, 1946), 2. 78 Margaret H’Doubler, (Paper prepared for Gulick Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, 1973), 17.

45 Finally, the class would gather to discuss the process and their observations. The class would often end in spontaneous applause.79

It is important to note that throughout the class the students were asked to notice and discover the relationships in their own bodies. One student, Ellen Moore, remarked:

We had been taught to evaluate our own progress. It is no wonder that we were awed by our own experience in Margaret H’Doubler’s classes, for we not only had participated in an expansive approach to dance, but also had deepened our respect for ourselves as growing, self-directing, potential artists. This for most of us was a unique experience. 80

This is markedly different from the instructions typically given to musicians regarding how they use their bodies in making music. Most instrumentalists playing a wind instrument can recall at least one instance in their training of an embouchure change. This painstaking process is usually undertaken in an effort to fix a problem and the student is asked to copy a certain physical formation established by the instructor. Under H’Doubler’s method, the students were never being fixed but were motivated intrinsically by an attention to internal and external awareness to reach a personal artistic goal; in other words, intrinsic motivation was the only acceptable teaching method. For a conducting class it is tempting to fix obvious physical anomalies inhibiting the student’s ability to express the music. These physical obstructions however, are a result of a student’s previous relationship to their environment and can only be solved by internal awareness of how the body can accomplish an artistic goal. 81 Other methods of mimicry will ultimately result in diminished creativity and possible physical injury.

Karen McShane-Hellenbrand described a H’Doubler-type lesson taught by Mary Jane

Wolbers (M.S. 1949) at the celebration of UW-Madison Dance Department’s 80 th anniversary:

79 Ross, 148-163. 80 Ibid., 169. 81 Hanna, Thomas, “What is Somatics?” in Bone, Breath, & Gesture: Practices of Embodiment. Ed. Don Hanlon Johnson (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1995), 350.

46 As Mary Jane directed the class, I noticed she was establishing a kind of behavioral/conceptual platform for the students through her specific instructional delivery; both as they experienced the exercise itself, and through her process of asking each student to mindfully and kinesthetically attend to what it was she was experiencing. She used anatomical language and referred to biomechanical principles, she called for individual kinesthetic observation–all the while allowing time for the experience of affective sensations and the opportunity to express what had been experienced. It was brilliant! 82

The ingredients of Wolbers’ lesson plan might well be a model for a conducting class. It is important to call a student’s attention to the experience, to use anatomical language, to refer to biomechanical principles, to call for individual kinesthetic observation–all the while eliciting affective sensations followed by opportunities to discuss their experiences.

Although performing concerts was shunned by H’Doubler, her students did perform for audiences. Students strongly requested the opportunity to share what they were learning in class with others and H’Doubler agreed, naming the student dance club Orchesis . Interestingly, the program for their events listed the performers alphabetically in a specific effort to maintain each dancer’s anonymity and inhibit the establishment of a star dancer. Here again, H’Doubler’s goals for her students reached far beyond the actual dance performance. Individual excellence was always encouraged and only the best dancers were admitted into Orchesis by audition, but not at the expense of others’ personal development.

Janice Ross, in researching H’Doubler’s life and work, noticed that the learning conditions H’Doubler created could be a model for dance education and I believe, for conductor education. Ross writes, “The more one probes H’Doubler’s classroom, the more true it seems to be that she created the conditions for her students to be the real innovators.” 83 H’Doubler’s students went on to have tremendous impact on dance education and in professional dancing, yet

82 Hagood, 138. 83 Ross, 193.

47 H’Doubler never performed herself, never choreographed, and only rarely demonstrated. Ross surmises that perhaps a mentor who demonstrates is intimidating. Though highly proficient, such an instructor may have a negative effect on the student’s development as “insightful, reflective artists.” 84

It is important to note the shortfalls observed in H’Doubler’s method if conducting pedagogy is to incorporate some of her methods. Although H’Doubler’s emphasis on creating intelligent movers continues to pervade dance training, her condemnation of the professional performer in higher education is a thing of the past. Her ideals emerged from the physical education department where her charge was to educate young women in the larger spectrum of humanity, using dance as the conduit for this information. A former student, Edith Boys Enos, remarked, “Miss H’Doubler didn’t want our education to be piecemeal. She wanted everything to be related. In other words she wanted dance to be related to us and to life and to history.” 85

The interviews and anecdotes provided by her former students overwhelmingly validate

H’Doubler’s impact on the lives of her students, but H’Doubler was not a dancer, nor choreographer, nor producer of a consumable art form. Her method was aimed directly to those who had yet to discover an intelligence of movement and intended to address the advanced mover. H’Doubler’s argument against professional training however, aptly serves the goals of a conducting class: connecting students to many permutations of humanity(music) through movement, establishing an understanding of the body, expressing inner emotions through intelligent movement, finding a way of moving that is unique to each student, not copied, and learning to reflect the rhythmic structures of the body and music. From the literature review in

84 Ibid., 16. 85 Ross, 161.

48 Chapeter One, it is evident that beginning conductors, like students in the early years of academic dance, have rarely thought about, studied, or embodied these concepts.

Like H’Doubler, conductors do not seek to perform their movements for an audience.

Rather, they seek to create a spontaneous physical expression of inner emotions motivated by the musical score, which they display and adjust for the benefit of the entire ensemble. Although conductors prepare ensembles specifically for a musical performance, the conductor’s movement is not the performance.

A shortcoming to H’Doubler’s approach noted by one of here students is that students are not pushed to excel. Some conducting students will surely thrive in the environment of a mentor that pushes them to achieve specific measurable goals, but as leaders of an ensemble, a conductor cannot rely on exterior motivation for their achievement. An internal motivation to search for creative solutions is essential for leadership in creating an art form. Although some students may struggle with a teaching method derived from intrinsic discoveries, it is questionable whether a conductor can be effective in the long term without developing internal motivation, whatever the discomfort.

Of the few detracting observations of H’Doubler’s work, one that stands as a lesson for conducting pedagogy is that as times changed, her outlook and method did not. While her method was important and revolutionary in the face of Victorian America’s standards for the feminine role in society, it did not expand to the needs and desires of the more progressive woman of the 1950’s. The few women who were allowed in the University of Wisconsin-

Madison in the early 20th century were surely not encouraged to know how their body worked or to use it expressively, 86 so H’Doubler’s substantiative and intelligent approach to movement

86 Ibid., 51.

49 launched a generation of women to the forefront of dance and education. By 1950 however, the role of women in society and women’s physical education programs had progressed to a point where dance education could include much more than H’Doubler’s method.

Summary

Understanding the pedagogical discourse from dance’s history in higher education is important for conducting pedagogy because it reveals the origins of its methods for teaching expressive movement. Margaret H’Doubler was the professor at the University of Wisconsin-

Madison early in the 19th century who founded the first dance major on a college or university campus. Her methods are especially applicable to conductors because, being the first in her field, she was educating students who had little previous experience in the art of movement. She was primarily concerned with each individual’s process of creative and bodily discovery rather than honing virtuosic movement. H’Doubler created an academic approach to understanding the human body and the components the create its capacity for expression.

As academic dance matured, it ventured from H’Doubler’s exclusive attention to students’ processes and began to include coursework intended for the professional performer.

Today dance departments like UW-Madison’s offer a centered approach to coursework that encourages self-discovery as well as opportunities for learning virtuosic movement.

Just as in dance history, innovation in conducting pedagogy has produced further innovation. The search for ever more creative approaches to conducting pedagogy is now commonplace in the field. Charles Gambetta has created an entire curriculum around the Laban movement system, and Glenn Adsit and Michael Haithcock are completing a text that relies on

50 Laban’s principles as well. 87 One progressive step in the further development of conducting and its pedagogy is to become expert movers who understand anatomy, the principles of movement, movement improvisation, somatic intelligence, and the natural rhythms of corporeal movement. To do so requires conductors to experience the core of dance pedagogy’s curriculum which will be examined in the next chapter.

87 Matthew Aubin, “Effects of Different Sequences of Instruction on Conductor Expression in a Laban Movement Theory-based Beginning, Undergraduate Conducting Class” (DMA diss., 2010), 9.

51 CHAPTER FOUR

Dance Curriculum

When my body and soul move together they create a rhythm of movement: and so I danced . –Rudolf Laban 88

The brief history of dance in American higher education presented earlier outlines two divergent methods for dance education: The H’Doubler method of educating an intelligent mover and the Hill method of training a virtuosic mover. Alma Hawkins attempted to centralize dance pedagogy’s approach through her presentation at the 1965 Dance as Discipline Conference and her suggestions from that presentation sparked a series of discussions that shaped the modern dance curricula. 89 Dance curricula however, remains quite varied. This variation may be attributed to the relatively small size of most dance departments or the varying expertise of the faculties, or a combination of both. For the purpose of this study I will focus on the dance curriculum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, because of its historic significance in offering the first dance major and its curricular requirements’ resemblence to Alma Hawkin’s belief in a synthesis of education and performance mentioned previously in Chapter Three.

Looking at UW-Madison’s dance curriculum might offer new ideas for including movement training in conducting pedagogy.

The required coursework for undergraduate dance performance majors at UW-Madison encompasses a wide variety of topics. At the core of the curriculum are three classes upon which later dance-specific coursework is based: Movement Analysis , Somatic Theory and Practice , and

Movement as Material through Improvisation . These three classes create a foundation for

88 Rudolf Laban, Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (London: Macdonald & Evans, 1956), 9. 89 Hagood, Legacy, 33-35.

52 students during technique classes and choreography classes. The history and science of dance are also vital to dance, but are not included in this project because I believe they are less relevant to beginning conductors. They have their own history of music which has much more immediacy. This chapter distills the core curriculum for dance performance majors and applies the results to conducting pedagogy. The results are new ideas for addressing a conductor’s need to move creatively, intelligibly, and healthily.

53 Table 1. Undergraduate Dance Curriculum: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010-2011 90 (general studies requirements and electives not included)

DISCIPLINE RELATED REQUIREMENTS Dance 200 Writing Dance Performance, 3 cr 329 Anatomy or Anatomy for Dancers (Dance 560) 2 cr DANCE REQUIREMENTS Music 101 The Musical Experience 3 cr 111-412 Modern Dance Technique (9 cr must be from 311-412) 18 cr 125-425 Ballet Technique 14 cr (10 cr must be 225 or above) World Dance 4 cr (African, Asian, Javanese, and World Dance Workshops under 741- 001 or 560 No Jazz/Ballroom) 144 Rhythmic Training for Dancers 2 cr 151 Movement as Material through Improvisation 2 cr 161 Somatic Theory & Practices 2 cr 167 Intro. To Mvt. Analysis 2 cr 170 Performance Production 2 cr 241 Music Fundamentals 3 cr 255 Movement Composition for the Performing & Visual Arts 2 cr 265 Dance History I: Dance Art from the Renaissance to the 1950's 3cr 351 Video Design for the Performing & Visual Arts or 420 Sound Design for the Performing and Visual Arts 3 cr 355 Dance Composition II 2 cr 365 Dance History II: Directions and Issues of Contemporary Dance 3 cr 371 Creative Dance for Children or 372 Teaching of Dance to Adults 3 cr 440 Senior Seminar 3 cr 451-552 Dance Repertory 6 cr 455 Dance Composition III 2 cr Recommended Electives 155 Dance Performance Workshop 1 cr 165 World Dance Cultures 3 cr

90 University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Dance. “University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Program Bachelor of Fine Arts-Dance.” University of Wisconsin-Madison. http://www.dance.wisc.edu/academic/bfasum07.asp (accessed March 9, 2011).

54 Movement Analysis

Body Movement is not a symbol for expression, it is the expression. –Irmgard Bartenieff 91

Movement analysis focuses primarily on the theories of movement set forth by Rudolf

Laban and continued by his students and devotees. Like Margaret H’Doubler, Laban did not receive formal dance training. Born in Hungary in 1879, Laban was the son of a military governor in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At age 16 he apprenticed with a local visual artist.

During this time, he was exposed to the local theater and became interested in the performing arts. Laban trained in the military in 1899 and later married a painter, Martha Fricke. He experimented with movement, especially group improvisation. He continued his dance experiments and in 1913 began his first summer school in Switzerland where the famous dancer and pedagogue, Mary Wigman, was a student. His educational efforts expanded to include classes for children and in 1928 he presented his movement notation system to the Second

Dancers’ Congress . In 1930, Laban ran a summer course with the Wagner Festival and choreographed the ‘Bacchanale’ in Wagner’s Tannhäuser with Toscanini conducting. In 1934,

Hitler appointed Laban the Director of Movement and Dance throughout Germany under the

Ministry of Propaganda, and Laban became a naturalized German citizen. Two years later Joseph

Goebbels, the Third Reich’s Director of Reich Chamber of Culture, attended Laban’s dress rehearsal for a work to be premiered at the 1938 Olympics in Germany. After seeing the rehearsal, Goebbels refused to allow the performance. Laban was interrogated, resigned his office, and was put under house arrest. He escaped to Paris where he began a new life at age of

91 Peggy Hackney, Making Connections: Total Body Integration Through Bartenieff Fundamentals (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Pub., 1998), 34.

55 sixty. He immediately continued his movement research and was granted citizenship in the

United Kingdom in 1939. Laban published his first major book, Effort, in 1947. He continued to teach and work and his students continued developing his movement framework long after his death in 1958.

Laban’s research and theoretical concepts are vast, an exhaustive review of which is beyond the scope of this project. Several conducting dissertations have examined his work and have focused primarily on use of his Effort Qualities. 92 While the Effort Qualities indeed offer a rich vocabulary of movement and terminology useful for embodying sound, Laban’s full system offers additional opportunities for the conductor. Due to the quantity of existing research describing Laban’s Effort Qualities ,93 only a brief description will be presented in this project.

Only the portion of Laban’s methods that present immediate benefits for inclusion in a conducting curriculum will be incorporated here.

Laban’s overall system can be summarized with the acronym, BESS, or Body, Effort,

Shape, and Space. I believe Laban’s greatest legacy is the overarching framework of movement theory and his system of notation for movement. Laban did not feel his work was completed during his lifetime, and his students continued his legacy by developing various areas of BESS more fully.

The area of BESS entitled Body addresses the role of the body in movement. Peggy

Hackney summarizes five components:

1)How is the body organized/connected? 2)What is consistently maintained in the body? 3)Which body parts are moving?

92 Laban’s Effort Qualities refer to the attitude a mover has toward Time, Weight, Space, Flow. These will be examined more closely later in this chapter. 93 Recommended literature for a comprehensive look at Laban’s methods are Gambetta (2005) and Lisa Billingham, The Complete Condcutor’s Guide to Laban Movement Theory (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2009).

56 4)Where in the body does movement initiate? 5)How does movement spread throughout the body? 94

Laban accomplished these goals primarily through his complex system of movement notation that included every aspect of the human anatomy. Laban’s student, Irmgard Bartenieff, developed the area of Body to greater detail by observing the early neurological developmental patterns in humans. 95 Her work has gained some independence from Laban’s and crosses over into Somatic methods as well. Bartenieff found six stages of movement development that are foundational in connecting all aspects of the body. She noticed that each individual has dominant connectivity tendencies affecting how an individual interacts with her or his environment. By strengthening weak patterns, we can improve internal emotional states. The six patterns are:

1)Breath : both cellular and lung respiration. It is the key to fluidity of movement, internal shaping, the experience of inner space as three-dimensional, and a basic sense of trust in Being. 2)Core-Distal Connectivity : includes developing support from the internal core of the body and minimizing over-dependence on external muscles. This pattern also coordinates the relationship of each limb to center core and through center core to the other limbs and out to the world. 3)Head-Tail Connectivity : builds a sense of the individual self connected through the body’s internal vertical. This stage patterns the ability to give attention to the world and enjoy a flexible, sensuous, supportive spine in all three planes. 4)Upper-Lower Connectivity : builds grounding, strength, and intention through Yielding and Pushing into the earth. It patterns an ability to come from that grounded Push to Reach out into space and enable a Pull without disconnecting from Core; relates to building a sense of personal power. This stage also emphasizes pelvic shift in the sagittal and lateral for clarity of weight shift and ability to travel through space by connecting from the earth into the lowest part of the pelvis. 5)Body-Half Connectivity : organizes the body to be able to work with one side stable while the other side is mobile; patterns sidedness functions in the brain, aids in clarifying issues. 6)Cross-Lateral Connectivity : develops diagonal connections through the body and gradated rotation in the proximal joints to facilitate full three-dimensional movement and ability to spiral with complex level change and locomotion; prepares for multidimensional relational thinking and commitment to action. 96

94 Hackney, 218. 95 Ibid., 8. 96 Hackney, 218.

57

I believe problems conducting students experience on the podium might be directly linked to weaknesses in the patterns above. Although the level of connectivity in any of these patterns constantly fluctuates, overall preferences are evident and reveal paths for improvement.

For instance, Hackney (1998) combs through these connectivity patterns and offers practical explorations into the six connectivity patterns. Her suggested activities are also applicable for conducting classes. Table 2 gives a summary of symptoms that may appear when one of the connectivity patterns is being underused or is underdeveloped. Conversely, these weaknesses can be improved by awakening and strengthening the associated connectivity pattern. Some problems that young conductors struggle with appear on this table, such as left hand independence (see “Body-Half,” Table 2). Re-educating the body’s patterns of connectivity is one way to address these shortfalls on the podium.

58 Table 2. Traits Associated with the Bartenieff Connectivity Patterns 97

Connectivity Pattern Evidence of weakness

Breath Feeling exhausted. Feeling far away from yourself. Feeling tense or are under a great deal of pressure. Lack of mobility or stability. Difficulty connecting and communicating with another person.

Core-Distal Lack of center/confidence. Lack of self-esteem. Lack of fluidity in limbs. Lack of expressivity. Lack of perception.

Head-Tail Lack of will/spineless. Depression. Uptight/inflexible. Unmotivated. Submissive. Lack of imagination.

Upper-Lower Easily enters sense of failure. Pushy. Trouble achieving goals. Difficulty setting personal boundaries.

Body-Half Uncertain in taking a position. One sidedness. Tendency toward black/white stance. Difficulty displaying opposing qualities.

Cross Lateral Lack of ease in movement. Difficulty reacting to changing situations. Difficulty conceptualizing complex interrelationships and connections.

97 Table compiled from Hackney, 51-199.

59 Although Effort is a major component of Laban’s theories, his text of the same name was not published until 1947 when he was seventy years old. The impetus for the book came from an industrialist, Frederic Charles Lawrence, with whom Laban had worked closely in assessing the movement patterns of Lawrence’s wartime factory workers. The text focuses on the impact of Effort on the workplace, but the concepts are universal for all movement. Laban applied his new concepts of Effort to a performance setting in his 1950 book, The Mastery of

Movement .

Laban observed that movement was affected by an inner motivation that could be divided into four Movement Factors and that each Movement Factor had opposing aspects called Effort

Qualities: Weight (strong or light), Time (quick or sustained), Space (direct or indirect) and Flow

(free or bound). The Effort Qualities do not describe the actual movements taking place but describe the attitude toward the movement taking place, or the attitude that causes the movement.

This subtle difference is vital to discern for conducting pedagogy. Training in Effort Qualities is aimed at the internal/personal impetus for movement rather than a demonstration of the descriptors Laban used to label the Effort Qualities.

Weight Effort refers to the attitude of lightness or strength in a movement. Time Effort is based on the attitude of sustain (the absence of time) or quickness (an attitude of suddenness).

The most difficult concept for musicians might be that of Time Effort because of the central role rhythm plays in music. Time Effort does not refer to a steady beat. In fact, music that has a steady monotonous groove could be considered sustained time if the pulse stems from an attitude of timelessness. A quick Time Effort may be necessary in a performance requiring a sporadic, chaotic musical phrase or perhaps in an accelerando passage.

60 Space Effort is again the attitude toward space and differs from the Space aspect of

BESS (also known as Space-Harmony) which describes the relationship to the physical space encompassing the mover. Space Effort describes the attitude toward space. An attitude of directness focuses on one specific place, whereas an attitude of indirectness has no care where movement is taking place and may be a perception of the entire universe rather than one specific point in space.

Flow Effort is an attitude toward the flow of movement from the body. An attitude of free flow means that the mover is interested solely in creating constant movement of any kind– unbridled motion is the goal. Bound Flow Effort would be the desire to control the flow of all movement emitted from the body. For musicians, this description of Flow Effort might more accurately reflect the sensation or impetus for rhythm. If music has a steady rhythm, it may be in a state of bound flow whereas undulating music that undulates or is espressivo may come from a greater attention to Free Flow.

The Movement Factors can exist in pairs called Effort States (Table 3) and triads called

Action Drives (Table 4), which do not include Flow Effort. To articulate his theories, Laban labeled each combination. Although these labels are helpful for discussion they can be misleading in that students perform the descriptor rather than embody the theoretical concepts contained therein. For instance, a student who is introduced to the Action Drive label,“punch,” without proper understanding of Laban’s framework may create a fist and begin a boxing routine rather than searching for a sudden attitude towards Time, a direct attitude towards Space, and an attitude of strength towards Weight. In doing so, conducting students would merely be learning another beat pattern instead of expanding their movement intelligences. Laban warns, “But it is not the mastery of isolated physical movements which enhances movement awareness. It is

61 rather the reciprocal stimulation of the inward and outward flow of movement, pervading and animating the whole of the body, which is fostered in dancing.” 98 Conducting teachers could refrain from using Laban’s labels for the States and Action Drives and let the students describe their own experience when exploring the combinations of Effort Qualities. Laban’s method encourages students to explore more than the description. For instance, when describing the

“dab” Action Drive he writes, “Dabbing should also be experienced in parts of the body other than in the hands and feet. Shoulders, elbows, chin, head, knees can dab, but also the larger parts of the body, such as the hips, chest, and back, can perform dabbing movements.” 99 Rather than novice movers manipulating combinations of three Effort Qualities, it is much easier for students to combine two at a time.

Another essential application of the Action Drives and Effort States is having students translate musical sounds into the use of Effort Qualities. In that way, student conductors might more immediately gain a language for movement that draws on their previous expertise in sound.

Music does not exist discretely in complexity nor in simplicity; conducting students must learn to discern when music will require only one Effort Quality as opposed to combinations of two or three.

98 Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann, Modern Educational Dance, 3rd ed. (Boston: Plays Inc., 1980), 110. 99 Ibid., 69.

62 Table 3. Rudolf Laban’s Effort States 100

State Weight Time (when) Space (where) Flow (how) (what)

Awake x x

Remote x x

Stable x x

Dreamlike x x

Near x x

Mobile x x

Table 4. Rudolf Laban’s Action Drives 101

Drive Weight Time Space

Punch Strong Quick Direct

Press Strong Sustained Direct

Glide Light Sustained Indirect

Dab Light Quick Direct

Float Light Sustained Indirect

Flick Light Quick Indirect

Slash Strong Quick Indirect

Wring Strong Sustained Indirect

100 Adapted from Rudolf Laban, Mastery of Movement, Rev. Lisa Ullmann, 3rd ed. (Boston: Plays, Inc., 1971), 83. 101 Compiled from Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann. Modern Educational Dance , 59-73.

63 Although Laban outlined the basic concept of Space for the BESS framework, it was more fully developed by Warren Lamb. Lamb began studying with Laban in 1946 and continued working with Laban for most of his life. Lisa Billingham (2009) writes of Shape, “It is important to understand the difference between the process of form and ‘forming’ the body. The Shape aspect of Laban’s framework is concerned with a) the form of the body, b) how the body is moving into a form, and c) the movement process that is taking place.” 102

The body can be formed in many ways and a Laban Movement Analyst groups these forms into basic shapes for notational purposes. The five basic forms are a Pin, Wall, Ball,

Screw, and Tetrahedron (Pyramid). Using these five basic descriptors is an easy way for students to begin thinking about the overall shape of their bodies. However, the conductor’s limited mobility on the podium makes the basic shape forms have less application.

An applicable aspect of Shape for conductors is Shape Flow Support. This category describes the process of subtle changes in the inner torso that support all movements in the body.

The three opposing movements of Shape Flow Support are: 1) rising/shrinking (vertical plane),

2) widening/narrowing (horizontal plane), and 3) bulging/hollowing (sagittal plane). 103 Laban’s concepts of torso appear to be built on the work of Françoise Delsarte, a Parisian artist/philosopher who studied the nature of movement and expression. 104 Laban acknowledged that Delsarte provided stimulus for Laban’s ideas. Delsarte divided the body into three parts: 1) the torso was the center both of the body and of movement concept, 2) the mind exerted control over the body, and 3) the limbs were the freest for mobility. “The fundamental principle of

102 Lisa Adalade Billingham, The Complete Conductor’s Guide to Laban Movement Theory (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2009), 48. 103 The vertical plane exists from head to toe, splitting the body into a left and right half. The horizontal plane is also called the door plane and exists from side to side. The sagittal plane is also called the table plane and exists from front to back. 104 John Hodgson, Mastering Movement: The Life and Work of Rudolf Laban (New York: Routledge, 2001), 64.

64 expression was strength and control at the centre, with freedom at the extremities.” 105

Delsarte’s focus on the nature of expression as well as freedom of the limbs empowers conductors to look more closely at the torso, which he believed to be the center of expression.

The use of the torso to support movement and expression is a foreign concept for many. 106 Hackney reinforces the importance of the torso in all movement:

The concept that head and tail are in a constant and always changing interactive relationship is often the single most important realization that a student of movement can have. Such a realization provides an automatic inroad to patterning the whole body from a central core of alive involvement. All movement, from simple to complex, is aided by awareness of relationship through the spine. 107

In a society that spends much time in chairs, the torso is locked into supporting the seated position and rarely moves in the three planes described above. As a result, I believe conductors may risk inadvertently ignoring the full potential of the expressive center of the body. If conducting teachers focus instruction on the shape of the hands and arms in the absence of the torso, they ignore the very structure that supports freedom in their distant limbs. The torso must be actively involved in the shaping of the body or a sensation of remoteness, physical discomfort, or injury might result. By employing Hackney’s involvement of the spine and torso to support all movement, a conductor can create a beat pattern with little exertion from the arms.

For instance, from a generic centered conducting position, with the arms placed in front of the torso, a rising in the torso and then a shrinking will result in a more obvious motion in the limbs.

The arms will inadvertently rise and fall, amplified by the physics of lever action through the arm’s support structures. When widening and narrowing are explored, the arms will gently open and close. When the arms are finally involved the result is a powerful communication from

105 Hodgson, 65. 106 Hackney, 86. 107 Ibid., 87.

65 minimal action. Using the stronger muscles of the torso to initiate movement will alleviate unnecessary strain on the shoulders and arms.

Laban’s fourth aspect of the BESS movement framework, Space, also called Space

Harmony , describes not only the physical relationships of distance and volume but also the body’s interaction with space. In describing physical space Laban uses the three planes of vertical, horizontal, and sagittal. Laban maintained that the Effort Qualities are naturally reflected in these planes, and he created movement scales 108 that move through the Action

Drives. For instance, forward sagittal movement was associated with sustained time; the upward vertical plane reflected light weight effort; and movement in the horizontal plane, away from the center, would involve an indirect attention to space. So if one moved his or her right half to a forward right upward movement, the natural Action Drive would be glide (light, sustained, indirect). Movement scales are most certainly not intended to develop the creativity of a mover, but exploring the planar aspects of movement may reveal a conductor’s personal affinity or distaste for different Effort Qualitites. If a student holds her or his body close to center and rarely opens to the side, this may reveal a tendency to enjoy direct space more than indirect. On the podium this could reflect that he/she experiences difficulty in perceiving the entire ensemble at once and only focuses on one part of the music.

Another of Laban’s descriptions for a mover’s physical space was the Kinesphere . The

Kinesphere is the outer limits of a body’s total movement potential in all directions. It is an imaginary sphere that surrounds the mover and travels with him/her. 109 Each conductor will have a level of the Kinesphere that is more comfortable to her/him but different styles of music will

108 Laban intended to draw a parallel with musicians playing scales as a basic building block for musical technique. The movement scales were exercises to build technical flexibility in using the Effort Qualities. 109 Laban, Mastery of Movement , 38.

66 demand that both the outer region of the Kinesphere as well as the closest region of the

Kinesphere be used.

The interaction with the Kinesphere also falls under Space. 110 This interaction can be performed by spiking (moving from the center of the Kinesphere toward the outer edge), arcing

(moving from point to point while staying in contact with the sphere), and/or carving (interacting with the Kinesphere by moving in any direction). Again, conductors will find natural affinities to the different relationships with the Kinesphere but will want to become comfortable with all the possibilities.

Another of Laban’s concepts in the area of Space was the Psychological Kinesphere . This describes the space of awareness that a person inhabits mentally. Oftentimes score study is a personal time for conductors and they will be in a very small Psychological Kinesphere, looking deep within to find a relationship with the music being ingested. When a conductor steps to the podium, it is vital that a large Psychological Kinesphere be used so that ensemble members furthest from the conductor can sense the conductor’s communication and know the conductor is perceptive to all sounds taking place. I propose that conductors not recognizing a need to change the size of their Psychological Kinesphere from score study (internal/small) to rehearsal/performance (global/large) might struggle with aural perception on the podium or with connecting to an ensemble.

110 Billingham, 66.

67 Somatics

Inner Connectivity and Outer Expressivity are in a co-creative relationship to each other. And that relationship is always changing. –Peggy Hackney 111

When the body is experienced from within, the body and mind are not separated but are experienced as a whole. –Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen 112

This section will examine several somatic methods and give a critical opinion of several somatic methods’ potential for conducting pedagogy or in some instances, a method’s opposition to current conducting pedagogy. The term somatics was first used by Thomas Hanna. Based upon the Greek word, soma or body, somatics refers to a growing field of study in movement that views the body from the personal subjective experience rather than from a third person objective perspective. Hanna writes:

When a human looks at itself in the mirror, it sees a body–a third-person, objective structure. But what is this same body when looked at from an internal, somatic perspective? It is the unified experience of self-sensing and self-moving. From the mode of first-person perception, the soma’s “body” is a body of functions. 113

In other words, doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, and conducting teachers have historically observed the body from a third person viewpoint whereas the wealth of proprioceptive 114 information available from the person inhabiting the body has been largely ignored. Somatic information by its very nature becomes factual immediately upon sensation, whereas third-person objective observations require mediation through a set of principles, such

111 Hackney, 36. 112 Cohen, Bonnie Bainbridge. “An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering®,” The School for Body-Mind Centering®, http://www.bodymindcentering.com/About/> (accessed January 13, 2011). 113 Hanna, 346. 114 Proprioception is a sense of the self in space. This sense perceives the body in space via sensors in ligaments, joints, and muscle spindles. Even with eyes closed, a person can perceive where his or her limbs are in space.

68 as chemistry, physics, or other sciences. Hanna points out that neither first or third person observation is better than the other, but are equal. 115

Hanna’s concept that humans have two irreducible viewpoints for observation makes studies in somatic theory vital to the instruction of conducting, where the internal expression attempts to surface through subjective perceptions in the body intended for understanding by third person perceptions. One example of how using somatic versus third person perspectives can affect conducting pedagogy is using a mirror while practicing conducting. If students use a mirror to compare their bodies for resemblance to a certain mental image, they will be manufacturing their movement from a third-person viewpoint, and a depth of expression might be difficult to achieve. Rather, students create a movement somatically by sensing if their movement proprioceptively and comparing their sensations of movement to the internally intended expression. After the movement is created a student could then use a mirror to observe the movement for its efficacy in communicating their intent. If, in observation, the student does not perceive the intent of the movement, she/he should search their somatic sensations to explore movements needed for the desired expression. If a mirror is used to create or copy a movement image, it is important to somatically discover the contributing physicality that created the image.

Conducting texts such as Emily Green’s, The Modern Conductor, give many examples of patterns or third-person instruction. But the same text unknowingly creates demand for somatic understanding when Green speaks of the “psychological conducting.” 116

In developing his theory of somatics, Hanna criticized the effect of the prevalent model of behavioral conditioning in education:

115 Hanna, 342. 116 In Elizabeth A.H. Green and Nicolai Malko, The Modern Conductor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969) , Green gives many examples of beat patterns (third-person instruction) [p. 12-32] and asks for psychological conducting (first-person) [p.114-117] with little instruction of how to achieve it.

69 The Pavlovian and Skinnerian models of learning are manipulative techniques of forcing an adaptive response on the body’s involuntary reflex mechanisms. Conditioning is an engineering procedure that opposes the function of somatic learning by attempting to reduce the repertoire of voluntary consciousness. Conditioning neither requires focusing of awareness nor does it result in the learning of conscious somatic actions. Rather, their aim is to create an automatic response that is outside the range of volition and consciousness. 117

Direct instruction as quoted above is not the only factor that has the potential to condition the body to contradict somatic perceptions. The environment surrounding a body over time might also create responses that can create what Hanna calls, sensory-motor amnesia. According to

Hanna, this is a state that all people experience as a result of stress conditions over a long period.

Once this amnesia occurs, musculature cannot be voluntarily sensed or controlled; only somatic learning can help lost muscle patterns be relearned. 118 Hanna’s theories have a deep impact on conducting pedagogy since most instruction involves movement. Students use their bodies in drastically different ways, depending on their previous environments and experiences within those environments. The literature review of this project presented conducting texts that rely on prescriptive tasks that do not account for individual student movement. To impose a single standard of movement on a student without first addressing the sensory-motor amnesia that may be in place is counterproductive to student growth. Without increased somatic awareness, it may be harmful and create new stress on the body. Irene Dowd argues that our best intentions may not work unless somatic learning takes place first: “It sometimes turns out that what we have previously learned prevents us from being able to perform a new movement that we now want to

117 Hanna, 349. 118 Hanna, 350.

70 add to our repertoire.” 119 Somatic learning provides distinct advantages for teaching conducting. Frances Bruce (2003) writes:

Underlying conventional physical training regimes is a concept of hierarchical motor control in which the body is a passive player in the command of higher brain centers. New movement patterns are learned according to consciously directed “orders” emanating from the brain as ‘mission control.’ A teacher or trainer gives explicit instructions which, if accurately passed from brain to muscles, lead to predictable results. The assumption is that we all learn the same thing in the same way. Individual differences are not taken into account, at least at the level of theory. Movement is treated as detachable from both the self who moves and the larger environment in which the self is embedded. 120

Somatic learning is clearly essential to the intelligent mover and especially essential to the conductor as a creative and expressive mover.

Several methods of somatic learning have been developed, each with varying strengths.

One method that has already been discussed is the Bartenieff Fundamentals of movement, including the six Connectivity Patterns discussed earlier. The Bartenieff method is intended to connect the entire body so that all movement is created with an awareness of the whole. This kind of connectivity is not natural in adults who normally isolate portions of their body to achieve various tasks. For instance when reaching for a glass of water, most adults will reach with a hand while unknowingly locking the torso and lower half. Instead, a connected body might sense the grounding in the feet (if standing) and notice that, as the arm is raised toward the glass, the abdomen and lower extremities must adjust for this revised relationship to gravity. This sensation increases as the body compensates for the added weight of the glass by using the musculature crisscrossing down the arm, shoulder, and spine to the sacrum.

119 Irene Dowd, “Ideokinesis: The 9 Lines of Movement” in Taking Root to Fly: Seven Articles on Functional Anatomy (New York: Contact Editions, 1981), 7. 120 Frances Marion Bruce, “Making Sense in Movement: the Dynamics of Self-Learning and Self-Change” (PhD diss., Texas Woman’s University, 2003), 29.

71 Mary Bond writes that Western culture’s lack of movement has resulted in an increase in physical ailments. 121 I believe Western society’s general lack of connectivity has also created misconceptions in the world of conducting. In Douglas Stotter’s text, Methods and Materials for

Conducting, he states that the legs’ role in posture and stance is to, “help prevent extraneous side-to-side and front-to-back movement that could draw attention away from the ictus and make it difficult to focus on beat pattern and gesture.”122 Extraneous movement is only a problem if it is a result of a disconnected body, since a connected body resonates the intention of pulse or expression throughout the body. In addition, by using the legs as a method of stopping certain movements, new stress is introduced to the body that might result in later physical problems as described by Hanna 123 and Dowd who writes,

...a person has learned certain patterns that are working well to perform the movement goals, but over the years, not only does that pattern make it possible to achieve those goals, but it also makes it possible to develop certain chronic injuries: arthritis of the hip, chondromalacia patella, or something like that. While this pattern produces the movement goal, it also produces certain deformations in the structure.” 124

The conducting text by Hunsberger and Ernst (1992) tells conductors to “keep your shoulders back,” 125 when the idea of “keeping” any part of the body in one position counters the body’s ability to adjust to any changes or to remain relaxed and have an active and healthy posture. Mary Bond (2007) states, “I see posture not as how you hold your body when you’re still but as how you carry it while you’re moving. This distinction reveals posture to be a dynamic activity rather than a static attitude.” 126

121 Bond, 62. 122 Douglas Stotter, Methods and Materials for Conducting (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2006), 3. 123 Hanna, 350. 124 Dowd, 8. 125 Donald Hunsberger and Roy E. Ernst, The Art of Conducting (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), 3. 126 Bond, 4.

72 Stotter (2006) describes how to create a beat pattern: “Left and right arm movement must use the shoulder and the elbow.” 127 In actuality, the movement of the arm to the right or left will involve the entire body redesigning itself to adjust for any shift in weight. Stotter’s isolation of the body continues throughout the text, including a recommendation similar to those I have heard at various conducting symposia across the country: “Begin by conducting a 3/4 pattern the size of a postage stamp using only the smallest hinges in the hand. Gradually increase the size of the pattern by adding hinges as explained above [fingers, then wrist, then elbow, then shoulder for ever larger movement].” 128 Again, regardless of size, the entire body must compensate for any shift in support or placement of the body in space. As Hackney writes, “The whole body is connected, all parts are in relationship. Change in one part changes the whole. Acknowledging relationships between parts of the body brings the possibility for both differentiation of the parts and integration of the whole.” 129 While the degree to which each part of the body participates may vary, the entire body is always involved. Stotter’s advice might result in an increase in tension and a separation from the torso which according to Hackney, is the source for expression.

Greater somatic awareness is needed to achieve even an elementary beat pattern; the Bartenieff

Fundamentals are good places to begin.

Posture is a vital component of a conductor’s experience on the podium.

Misunderstandings regarding posture are pervasive and often result in health problems, especially for conductors. I argue that the methodology of teaching the standard baton grip displays a lack of somatic awareness in posture. Joseph Labuta (2010), while giving relatively little instruction in bodily movement, reinforces the common instruction to “keep your palm

127 Stotter, 6. 128 Stotter, 8. 129 Hackney, 40.

73 facing downward” 130 when gripping the baton. Whereas this is an ideal position, the entire body must be positioned correctly in order to comfortably hold the arms in this position for an entire rehearsal. I have observed fatigue to be common in beginning conducting classes when the baton grip is introduced. Students start shaking out the arms and wrists because of tension when first gripping the baton. If the hips and torso are not in the proper position, keeping the wrist flat to the ground is an uncomfortable position. By forcing this position in denial of the somatic messages being sent to the brain, we condition our bodies to deny the somatic message, causing more stress in our bodies. 131 The fatigue observed in conducting classes may be more a result of weakness in the core, which is necessary for relaxed distal limbs. Without addressing the somatic issues of posture, young conductors may be setting patterns for potential injury.

Whereas most somatic methods will increase awareness needed for intelligent posture, particular methods such as Alexander Technique, devote significant attention to posture.

Alexander’s motivation for his method was to find the cause of several physical difficulties he experienced vocally while acting. The core actions of Alexander technique are taking responsibility for the use of self, both good and bad, and the act of non-doing, or releasing control. The fundamental Alexander directions are:

Let the neck be free To let the head go forward and up To let the torso lengthen and widen To let the knees go forward 132

Another method that is especially beneficial for posture is Ideokinesis : the imagining of movement/pictures to activate different behaviors in the body. It is also a process that trains the

130 Joseph A. Labuta, Basic Conducting Techniques (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010), 17. 131 See Dowd’s quote on p. 75 of this project. 132 Charlip, Remy. “Bone Meditations.” Contact Quarterly (Fall 1981), 26.

74 nervous system to produce new patterns. 133 Ideokinesis uses thinking rather than doing to invoke postural change. The method was created by Mabel Todd (1874-1956) but the term ideokinesis was invoked by Lulu Sweigard (1895-1974) who expanded upon Todd’s initial work.

Sweigard was a physical education major and studied posture with Todd at Columbia University.

Sweigard’s research measured the effects of ideokinesis and showed that the resulting alignment improvement had distinct benefits for the body. She found that there are nine areas or lines-of- movement of the skeleton that have the greatest influence on body alignment:

1. A line-of-movement to lengthen the spine downward: contributes to decrease tilt in the pelvis and to release tightness in the muscles of the back, especially in the lumbar area. 2. A line-of-movement to shorten the distance between the mid-front of the pelvis and the twelfth thoracic vertebra: helps to promote more efficient support of weight. 3. A line-of-movement from the top of the sternum to the top of the spine: may either lengthen or decrease the distance between the upper front of the rib-cage and the cervical spine, depending on alignment needs. 4. A line-of-movement to narrow the rib-cage: contributes to alignment of the spine for weight support, to flexibility of the shoulder girdle, and to a more efficient position of the pelvis and lower limbs. 5. A line-of-movement to widen across the back of the pelvis: helps to release the tightness of the outward rotators of the femora. 6. A line-of-movement to narrow across the front of the pelvis: helps to improve muscle control on the inside of the thigh joints and to contribute to the centering of weight in the femoral joints. 7. A line-of-movement from the center of the knee to the center of the femoral joint: influences the balance of the pelvis. 8. A line-of-movement from the big toe to the heel: to center weight at the ankle joint. 9. A line-of-movement to lengthen the central axis of the trunk upward: promotes many simultaneous changes in the trunk, especially in the alignment of the spine and the position of the head. 134

The sophistication and detail of Sweigard’s method of posture outlined above is immediately noticeable when compared to the posture advocated in conducting texts such as

Stotter’s. Postural methods such as Alexander’s and Sweigard’s have been available for decades

133 Dowd, 7. 134 Lulu E. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential: Its Ideokinetic Facilitation (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1975), 192-196.

75 and are easily implemented into the conducting curriculum. Proper posture is essential for conductors since all movement begins from this active state. Further training in postural concepts might aid conducting educators in addressing both the needs of their students and their profession.

A conductor’s role is more than maintaining a proper posture on the podium; a conductor must move. The Feldenkrais Method is another branch of somatic learning that improves intelligent movement and human functioning through a self-discovery process. 135 The method is named after its founder, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984). Dr. Feldenkrais was originally a physicist and mechanical engineer who, because of personal injuries, began studying the physics of the body to find a cure. 136 The method resulting from his research seeks maximum physical results, such as relaxation, coordination, and reduced pain from minimum bodily effort. This is achieved through small movements intended to increase awareness of the body’s total functionality. Group lessons guide participants to a greater self-image while lying on the floor.

This is followed by movement sequences that heighten awareness of various parts of the body in an effort to expand beyond existing neuromuscular patterns. 137 The most advantageous aspect of

Feldenkrais for the conducting classroom is the ease with which it can be implemented. Video recordings of many group-style lessons, as opposed to the Feldenkrais Method’s individualized hands-on therapy, can be purchased and presented to a class with minimal training for the instructor. Teacher and student learn together since somatic intelligence is a lifelong process.

135 Alan S. Questel, “The Feldenkrais Method®,” The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Body-Mind Disciplines. Ed. Nancy Allison (New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 1999). The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education, (accessed January 14, 2011). 136 Ibid. 137 Anne M. Rardin, “The Effects of an Injury Prevention Intervention on Playing-related Pain, Tension, and Attitudes in the High School String Orchestra Classroom” (DMA diss., University of Southern California, 2007), 21.

76 The nature of somatic learning can be disconcerting for some since the learning is motivated internally and differs from person to person. In a society that thrives on objective assessment and achievement, the lack of a single path of study in somatics and the absence of a concrete somatic ideal toward which to strive may be a deterrent from exploring somatic methods. Not knowing which method is appropriate might be difficult for educators who are responsible for their students’ well-being. To counter this unease it is important to remember that somatic education is an ongoing process for everyone. Whereas there are several other somatic methods of value such as the Franklin Method 138 and Body-Mind Centering ,139 the conducting educator need only employ a method that seeks a greater sensitivity to internal movement sensations. Other movement-oriented activities, such as martial arts, yoga, ethnic dancing,

Pilates, and Tai Chi, have many benefits for health, coordination, and inadvertently draw attention to somatic awareness. However, these methods are not rooted in somatic theory nor do they hold somatic awareness as a primary goal. Conductors are encouraged to engage in these activities as well as somatic methods based on theoretical models, such as those mentioned in this document.

138 As described on their website, www.franklin-methode.ch, accessed March 14, 2011, the Franklin Method “ brings together the disciplines of western and eastern science, sports psychology and somatics into a clear and practical format that professionals and laypeople alike can use.” 139 Body, Mind, Centering is a somatic method developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen that develops Bartenieff’s ideas further, to a molecular level. BMC brings awareness to the internal organs, fascia, and even the cellular connections in the whole body.

77 Dance Improvisation

One of the aims of dance in education, and I think the most important one, is to help people through dancing to find bodily relation to the whole of existence. –Lisa Ullmann 140

In this section I will examine several methods for using dance improvisation in dance education and look for ways to bring improvised movement into the conducting classroom. Only correlations between dancing and conducting have been explored to this point, but conducting does not mimic the art of dancing for four reasons:

1) A conductor is not creating movement as a product for aesthetic consumption by an audience; 2) A conductor does not set choreographed movement; 3) A conductor seeks to communicate directly to others, whereas dancers often intend to close off communication so that the form and movement of the body is at the center of the viewer’s perception; 4) A conductor’s expression (music) is created by other humans with wills, ideas, and expressions of their own;

Rather than using choreography, where specifically chosen techniques are to be honed and employed, a conductor must instead hold a nonverbal dialogue with an ensemble. This para- conversation reacts to the expression at hand and the manner with which it develops, or possibly implodes, using communication through movement. Subtle or sometimes obvious changes in this silent dialogue require spontaneous creative responses that will inspire the musicians to reflect the intention of the composer as realized by the conductor. The conductor must be able to

“speak” through movement while the ensemble members “reply” in sound.

The need for translation skills in sound-to-movement communication is clear, and the area of dance that I argue best addresses the movement portion of this exchange is dance improvisation. Blom and Chaplin (1988) explain that a common understanding of

140 Laban and Ullmann, 108.

78 communication can best be understood between people when the daunting possibilities of emotional expressions are reduced to movement in all people. 141 Dance improvisation takes the mover to a creative consciousness where she/he must become one with her or his body as creative material. Without the use of improvised movement in the conducting curricula, a conductor might never attempt to use a creative consciousness that is “open to all possible relevant associations, no matter how far afield, tangential, or metaphorical.” 142 Creative musical choices may be result through score study, but an inability to communicate these ideas nonverbally to the ensemble can be crippling and verbal explanation will ensue. “[Dance] improvisation calls forth images of a state beyond language, where images are plumbed from the depths of the human psyche, and where words do not suffice.” 143

Blom and Chaplin (1988) recommend several techniques to create an environment conducive for beginners to improvise. Since improvisation is ever-changing and each class will be filled with a variety of abilities, opinions, skills, and socio-cultural backgrounds, there are no absolute rules in how to lead improvised movement. Improvisation can be thought of as a traffic circle with the leader, the improviser, and the movement itself being the contributing elements to the circle. Blom and Chaplin encourage several paradoxical qualities for the leader of improvisation:

Structured yet flexible –Be organized and know how an activity is intended to reach an ultimate goal. Be prepared for students to make unexpected discoveries and tangents and consider the merits for the given activity. Experience will develop a leader’s skills in flexibility.

141 Lynne Anne Blom and L. Tarin Chaplin, The Moment of Movement (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), 6. 142 Ibid., 10. 143 David Gere as cited in Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere, Taken by Surprise: a Dance Improvisation Reader (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2003) , xiii.

79 In control yet unobtrusive –Students take comfort in knowing that the potentially chaotic situation of improvisation is being guided by a leader. Confidence and decisiveness are necessary without being obtrusive. The leader’s choice of ideas and structures should provide the impetus for heightened achievement rather than the leader’s personality. The leader must also monitor her/his movement preferences so that students’ own movement can be explored.

Sensitive yet not easily overwhelmed –While the leader must be sensitive to the needs and workings of a particular group, cool-headedness is needed to counter the vulnerability that comes with movement freedom. A level of professional detachment is needed so as not to become engulfed in the improv itself.

Patient yet time-consciousness –Leaders must not rush improvisation, which is time consuming. Sometimes this will include waiting through bland movement as students exhaust their predisposed movements. 144

In addition, Blom and Chaplin (2008) recommend that the leader be creative, have a sense of humor, and have the ability to guide and elicit responses. 145 It is helpful if the leader is an experienced dancer, but a conducting teacher has been improvising movement throughout his or her career and can be confident in his or her ability to guide students. It is important that young conductors have creativity included in their curricula via an experiential format to assimilate the movement theories described in earlier sections.

Blom and Chaplin (2008) suggest an atmosphere that best induces successful improvisation is safe and absent of evaluation for correctness. 146 Movement discoveries and unpredicted outcomes are to be celebrated. Even an experience that was unsatisfactory can be examined by a class for the reasons why it was unpleasant. The atmosphere must also encourage trust between participants. Demonstrations by the instructor should be avoided so that students are not tempted to copy her or his movement and to avoid intimidation by the more experienced instructor. Similar to skilled musicians who are uncomfortable with improvising music, Blom

144 Blom and Chaplin, 49-52. 145 Ibid., 52-53. 146 Ibid., 54.

80 and Chaplin claim that previous movement education does not correlate to comfortability in improvised movement. Sometimes beginning movement students who come to class without preconceived ideas of correctness might feel the most comfortable improvising. Blom and

Chaplin suggest that the cure for self-consciousness is repetition. 147 Conducting instructors can strive to regularly include opportunities to explore creative, spontaneous movement choices in the classroom.

Dance improvisation is not based on technique 148 as in other dance instruction but is conceptually based, drawing on concepts like those of Margaret H’Doubler and Rudolf Laban discussed earlier in Chapter Four. An essential component of dance improvisation is the kinesthetic awareness previously discussed in the “Somatics” section of this chapter. This organic approach relies on understanding messages from the internal nervous system that are undeniable to both beginners and professionals:

Creative dance works with the elements common to all motion, be it the movement of people, clouds, earthquakes, bulldozers, or birds...This point of view helps in finding structures used in teaching creative dance and provides a basis for making connections between dance and other areas of school curriculum.149

Music and conducting can certainly be included in the “other areas of school curriculum” mentioned above.

Mary Ann Brehm and Lynn McNett (2008) maintain that, just as rhythm is a force for organizing sound in music, dance improvisation is organized in opposing forces such as rest and action. Larger musical forms are built upon contrasts such as harmony, texture, or orchestration that create larger rhythmic phenomena in music. A conductor can also learn to represent these aural phenomena in movement through gestural improvisations structured around the rhythms of

147 Blom and Chaplin, 64. 148 Morgenroth, Joyce. Dance Improvisation, (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), xv. 149 Mary Ann Brehm and Lynn McNett, Creative Dance for Learning (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 6.

81 these musical opposites. To structure such improvisation, the teacher must be able to create problems built on theoretical frameworks, perhaps using Laban’s Motion Factors of Weight,

Time, Space, and Flow. Students must then use their own individual kinesthetic senses to discover solutions: 150

By making up movements as they dance, students use their perceptions and imaginations to explore new ideas, opening doors in the mind to improvisational and experimental thinking. Intellectually, actively, and emotionally, dancers evaluate experience and recycle it in relation to ever changing situations. By creating and choosing solutions to movement problems, students gain experience in facing predicaments with many variables. This builds courage and a suppleness of mind that will aid them in other situations requiring flexibility, judgment, and decision making. 151

Dance Improvisation also has the potential to expand the predisposed movement vocabulary of a conductor. 152 Those naturally displaying introverted personalities might explore general spaces, a large Kinesphere. Those who primarily enjoy strong driving music might investigate gentle movements, noticing the proprioceptive information that accompanies them.

Dance improvisation might reveal movement possibilities never considered before. For this reason, student involvement and suggestions for movement problems are encouraged to enhance the diversity of movement options. Once a conducting class is comfortable with movement improvisation, students might enjoy observing the movement of other students and the learning that accompanies close observation of movement styles other than their own. As Margaret

H’Doubler encouraged in Chapter Three, it is essential that the primary emphasis of dance improvisation be placed on the feeling and form of the movement material rather than on what it looks like. 153 The latter might reemphasize technique in lieu of internal awareness. To this end, improvisation can be used to reinforce the somatic awareness of anatomy, Bartinieff’s

150 Brehm and McNett, 12. 151 Ibid, 13. 152 Blom and Chaplin, 4. 153 Brehm and McNett, 27-28.

82 connectivity patterns , Laban’s and H’Doubler’s elements of expressive movement , and I believe for conductors, a personal somatic translation of sound into movement. For instance, a conducting class could listen to a clip of music with the objective of choosing which of Laban’s

Effort Qualities, singly and in combination, best represent the musical gestures. Students might then break into groups and discuss their choices. Each group would explore the combinations upon which they agreed and synthesize their improvisations into a sequence of movements representing the musical phrase. This sequence could be performed for the class who would share their observations. The performers would also share their somatic experience of the activity. Each conductor will most likely have different movement interpretations, just as musical interpretations differ, but the conductors will have a broader repertoire of movement with which to express their interpretations.

Another possibility for conductors is ensemble improvisation activities. The conductor is, due to his or her position, part of a group’s communication improvisation. By exploring the creative use of ensemble movement improvisations, a conductor might deepen her or his understanding and confidence in improvised gestures, together with the ensemble’s corresponding sound gestures. Georgette Schneer 154 claims that a group can accomplish mutual awareness and sensitivity that individuals will not. Conductors might also learn a greater sensitivity to both an ensemble’s sound and expression. Group improvisations can be created by combining individual experiments or by creating games based on the various frameworks suggested above. An example created by Mary Hayne 155 has a class member stand in the middle

154 Georgette Schneer, Movement Improvisation: in the Words of a Teacher and Her Students, (Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1994). 155 Mary Hayne is a Certified Movement Analyst and was a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008 with whom I had the pleasure of studying.

83 of the room, nonverbally directing students individually or in groups, to change locations in a room while embodying one of Laban’s Effort Qualities.

Below is a topical toolbox of improvisational ideas for linking elements of dance to improvisation compiled from Creative Dance Learning by Mary Ann Brehm and Lynne McNett.

The possibilities for group improvisation is limited only by the creativity of the instructor:

Body The physical form of objects Characteristic movements of a topic (animals, machines, etc.) Moving while focusing on parts of the anatomy Force/Weight Qualities of movement in a topic (i.e.-volcano vs. rainstorm) Emotions and dramatic characters Dramatic interactions in social studies, literature, and science Time Beat patterns of language Mathematical patterns [or forms in music/poetry] Varying time patterns (railroad car, wind speeds, etc.) Space Geometric shapes and topics (symmetry, assymetry, etc.) Lines and shapes in writing Sense of size Other Science topics Pictures, books, visual aids Dancing with objects (how does prop influence movement) Parts of speech (verbs, adjectives, etc.) 156

I believe that dance improvisation promises rich rewards for the conducting classroom. It has the potential to deepen the understanding of theoretical movement concepts; increase self- confidence for moving creatively; heighten sensitivity toward the movement of others; increase movement vocabulary; and expand the sphere of imagined possibility. Peggy Hackney supports that knowledge can be gained through movement:

For Irmgard [Bartenieff], movement, not more pondering, was what brought new knowledge. I have come to see this as the activation of preconscious knowledge and have myself

156 Compiled from Brehm and McNett, 66-94.

84 recognized that our bodies contain knowledge which is not accessible by ordinary linear intellectual probing. Moving, and a willingness to perceive the movement, brings access to bodily knowledge–partiularly the feelingful connection between thoughts. 157

Without some sort of improvised movement in the conducting classroom, students might never experience the creative aspect of movement that is necessary for their roles on the podium.

Instead, they will most likely rely on copying the movement of others and experience difficulty getting past their ingrained movement habits. Additionally, their creativity in movement might not be at the same level as their creativity in sound and their abilities to translate aural images into communication through movement will probably suffer.

Summary

Dance pedagogy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is built upon three core courses:

Movement Analysis, Somatics, and Dance Improvisation. Theories on movement and methods for creative and healthy movement are introduced to dance students in these courses. If a conductor is also expected to move creatively and healthily to communicate with an ensemble, then the same theories and methods have potential to benefit conducting pedagogy.

Movement Analysis focuses mainly on the theories of Rudolf Laban and the continuation of his work by his students such as Irmgard Bartenieff, Ed Graf, and Warren Lamb. Margaraet

H’Doubler also created a theoretical framework for analyzing movement but Laban’s work is mainly taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at this time. Laban’s theories are encompassed in four categories: Body, Effort, Shape, and Space. In the area of Body, Bartenieff established six connectivity patterns that can be useful for conductors in expanding beyond their habitual movement patterns. Combinations of Effort Qualities can be useful for conducting

157 Hackney, 3.

85 pedagogy if the theories behind them are properly understood as the motivation for a movement. In the Shape category conductors might benefit from developing a better use of the torso, especially since the torso is the part of the body most evident to an ensemble. The Space category includes the interaction of movement with the Kinesphere as well as the psychological space a mover considers. Both the physical and psychological Kinespheres can be useful tools for a conductor.

Somatics refers to a field of study in movement that views the body from the personal subjective experience rather than from a third person objective perspective. Ideokinesis,

Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais Method, and Alexander Technique are all methods discussed for their possible implications in the conducting classroom. Conducting texts may not address how to move healthily and creatively, but in the cases of Stotter (2006) and Labuta

(2010) and Hunsberger and Ernst (1992), they often contradict posture and movement theorists.

Dance improvisation has many parallels to the ever-changing conversation in movement that a conductor has with an ensemble. In the conducting classroom, it has the potential to deepen the understanding of theoretical movement concepts; increase self-confidence for moving creatively; heighten sensitivity toward the movement of others; increase movement vocabulary; and expand the sphere of imagined possibility.

86 CHAPTER FIVE

Implications for Conducting Pedagogy

It is the happy combination of mind and body developing alongside each other for which the teacher should work without inhibiting the one or over-developing the other. –Rudolf Laban 158

Musicians first stepping onto a conductor’s podium will no doubt spend some time adjusting to the larger musical forces and sonic possibilities of a large ensemble, but they are usually well-accustomed to manipulating sounds to create a complete artistic expression. The looming task before new conductors then is to explore the expressive possibilities of their bodies and movements so they may be as clear and creative on the podium as they were on their instrument or voice in representing their musical vision. Over time and study it is possible that a musician’s movements could become more expressive than his or her abilities with an instrument or voice.

The conductor’s role on the podium requires multiple skills in multiple situations that must be taught in the undergraduate conducting curriculum: leadership, musicianship, creativity, score study, and error detection to name a few. Although these subjects are also taught in other areas of musical study, the conducting classroom uniquely has the task of teaching students to represent these topics through movement. Movement, while only one factor of a conductor’s success, is a powerful medium for conveying information. Grechesky (1986) claims, “The findings indicate that conductors who can communicate their conception of the music through nonverbal techniques are more effective than conductors who must talk about the music. The

158 Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann. Modern Educational Dance , 22.

87 point is that if the essence of music is nonverbal, the essence of conducting should also be nonverbal.” 159

A student who mentally understands what a crescendo gesture might look like is far different from a student who understands how it feels to create a gesture of crescendo that elicits a corresponding response from an ensemble. Whereas conducting scholarship has begun to address the deficit of instruction in creating expressive gestures, the path to well-crafted movement remains elusive. Dance pedagogy concerned itself with educating expressive movers since entering higher education in 1926 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The field of dance pedagogy offers up a rich resource of insights into using the body creatively and expressively. Conducting studies have focused previously on small portions of dance curricula, primarily the Effort Qualities of Rudolf Laban, but dance pedagogy holds further possibilities for conducting curricula. Implementing the ideas borrowed from dance pedagogy will differ due to each educator and each conducting classroom’s situation, including scope, time, ability level of students, and course purpose. However, many of the principles discussed thus far can be adopted immediately with the potential for substantial results. This chapter will summarize concepts from

Chapters Three and Four and present examples for inclusion into the conducting curricula. The examples listed are starting points for each conducting teacher and not prescriptive methods.

Above all is the hope that teachers will take the concepts borrowed from dance pedagogy and create their own methods of including them into their own conducting curricula.

159 Robert Nathan Grechesky. “An Analysis of Nonverbal and Verbal Conducting Behaviors and their Relationship to Expressive Musical Performance.” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1985), 153.

88 Margaret H’Doubler

Perhaps the easiest goal for which to aspire, but the most challenging to implement, is

Margaret H’Doubler’s philosophy of the creative development of each individual. This method is time-consuming and does not rely on measurable assessment tools. For conducting educators to use H’Doubler’s methods, teachers must plan their lessons with goals for creative growth in mind but with a flexible process that adapts to the unfolding needs of each class. They cannot plan what is going to happen, but rather what they hope their students will discover. The standard linear teaching model of cause and effect that is often used for lesson planning is not used in

H’Doubler’s method.

A journey through many conducting textbooks (Green and Malko 160 , Labuta 161 ,

Hunsburger and Ernst 162 , Stotter 163 , etc.) exposes the dearth of creative material to which a conducting student is exposed. Traditional conducting texts lay out a wealth of objective tasks that conductors can use on the podium, but the same objective topics can also be presented using a student’s own subjective process of creative discovery. The bulk of a conducting student’s musical creativity is developed outside of the conducting classroom, 164 but the conducting student, unless he/she has previous experience in dance, has probably not thought creatively about movement. If young conductors do not establish creative movement habits during their conducting coursework, their creative musical thoughts might never have a voice; frustration might ensue.

160 Elizabeth A.H. Green and Nicolai Malko, The Modern Conductor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969). 161 Joseph A. Labuta, Basic Conducting Techniques (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010). 162 Donald Hunsberger and Roy E. Ernst, The Art of Conducting (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992). 163 Douglas Stotter, Methods and Materials for Conducting (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2006), 3. 164 One need only compare the number of hours an undergraduate conducting students has spent on an instrument and playing in chamber groups compared to the limited time allotted to studying conducting.

89 Example for incorporating H’Doubler’s method: When teaching beat patterns, an instructor could play a piece of music that has a strong metric sense of pulse. The students could be asked to explore this metric sense using various parts of their body and to ultimately devise a pattern to reflect the meter. To avoid conductor-like copy-cat gestures, a stipulation could be that arms could not be used. Further exploration could involve using at least two or three body parts in the pattern. After observing the patterns of others, students could discuss the similarities between the various interpretation of the meter. Were there common characteristics to show the strongest pulse, such as direction, force, speed, time? Students could then explore possibilities introduced by their colleagues. How does changing the direction used to display the emphasized pulse affect the emotional sensation of the gesture? What about changing the speed? A different piece of recorded music could be played with a different meter or a less obvious pulse. Students could be asked to discover ways to reflect the changes in metrical organization that they hear. At the conclusion of the class, students could return to their traditional text and discuss the conventional patterns represented and discuss how they can function in a variety of situations, including those situations that might require a traditional pattern. When a conductor begins conducting an ensemble for the first time she/he may choose to begin by using a standard beat pattern until the ensemble becomes flexible and trusts the physical messages coming from the podium.

Movement Analysis

Movement analysis coursework in dance pedagogy provides a theoretical framework for movement and its expressive potential. While H’Doubler developed her own analytical system

90 for examining movement, she did not encourage her students to continue a method in her name. In contrast, Laban and his students developed his analytical theories to a more comprehensive body of work. As a result, the most common method used in dance pedagogy today is that of Rudolf Laban. 165 Conducting teachers have little time to become Certified Laban

Movement Analysts, but guest lecturers, classes, or workshops in Laban’s theories can be found in a brief search on the internet. 166 Teaching Laban’s theories to conducting students establishes a common language for discussing what students observe in movement on the podium. 167 As

Gambetta (2005) claims, this language is useful in exploring new ways for conductors to represent their ideas through movement. 168 The theoretical framework will also introduce students to ways of moving that they have never conceived through their previous movement patterning. This expanded movement vocabulary has the potential to heighten sensitivity and awareness of the movement used by others, establishing a lifelong appreciation for movement learning.

Methods for implementing some of Laban’s theories in an undergraduate conducting curriculum have already been developed, 169 especially the use of the Effort Qualities, but there are other components of Laban’s system that pose great rewards for conductors and have been largely ignored by conducting pedagogy. First is the use of the torso: the torso is the center of the body and as such, needs to be included in each and every movement by the conductor. While

165 Wilson, Hagood, and Brennan, 303-4. 166 The Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies website has links to events around the world: http://www.limsonline.org/ (accessed December 30, 2011). 167 Bartee, 198. 168 Gambetta, 177. 169 Charles Gambetta (2005) developed an entire curriculum around the Laban Motion Factors. Glen Adsit (Hartt School of Music) and Michael Haithcock(University of Michigan) are also developing a conducting text using Laban’s theories.

91 these movements can be subtle, a supple torso has the potential to create greater relaxation and connected movement.

Example: When introducing dynamics in the conducting curricula, conductors might explore initiating their gestures from the torso by using the three planes described in Chapter

Four: vertical, horizontal, and sagittal. Students can then add their limbs to their sense of rising or shrinking, widening or narrowing, and bulging or hollowing. The torso must motivate the limbs or a sense of detachment might be projected. The torso can also be a starting point for all other movements by a conductor: legato, strength, staccato, etc.

It is vital for student conductors to begin translating their aural images into movement and Laban’s movement theories have the potential to facilitate that process. When the conducting curricula address issues of texture, accelerando, fermata, etc., students can make individualized choices of those aspects of Laban’s system that come into play. In this way, students have opportunities to work both on interpreting the musical material in the score and creating personal styles that represent their musical decisions. This parallel between movement and sound must be a continuous process so that the movement metaphor for sound becomes a natural extension of the conductor’s expression.

Example: When the conducting curriculum addresses changes in tempo, the class could listen to a recording of the second movement of Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy , writing which of the Effort Qualities seem to dominate at any given moment. Students could then listen again while moving in the Effort Quality they chose as dominant in each section. The instructor would then focus on one of the phrases that requires a slowing of the tempo. A discussion would ensue regarding the role of the conductor at that moment, seeking a consensus that the conductor must not only portray his/her Effort Quality, which will most likely involve a dominance of time

92 or flow, but also the actual amount of change desired. Students will begin to understand not only the somatic sensation of ritardando in their bodies, but they will also learn to express an attitude toward their movement and coincidentally, the objective information needed by the ensemble. Finally, the students could experiment conducting the ritardando while classmates sing the melody to establish a relationship between their somatic sensations, aural image, and the sounds created by the ensemble. Notice that when the students conduct they are not attempting to find a correct way of conducting a ritardando , but rather are developing somatic sensations that invoke sounds matching their aural intentions.

The concept of the psychological Kinesphere is an effective way to establish a productive rehearsal atmosphere. As mentioned in Chapter Four, conductors often study scores deep in thought, encompassing a very small psychological Kinesphere. When they come to the podium, the opposite is required if performers in the back of the ensemble are to feel included in the music-making. Conductors have the potential to communicate more effectively if they are aware of their psychological Kinesphere.

Example: Psychological Kinesphere can be included in the conducting curriculum when cues are introduced to students. In a lab atmosphere, the class can spread out both near and far from the podium. Students can then take turns on the podium manipulating their psychological

Kinesphere. The students playing/singing around the classroom are asked only to perform if they feel the conductor’s psychological Kinesphere is large enough to encompass the area in which they are seated. After all students have experienced using both large and small psychological

Kinespheres, a discussion about the experience would take place. The leader could facilitate a discussion about how much energy the students felt was needed to expend to maintain a large psychological Kinesphere as opposed to a small one. Another topic to discuss would be physical

93 techniques that the students found to work, both from a somatic viewpoint and by observations. Finally, students would discuss how the physical and psychological parameters of a cue affect the quality of the cue. For instance, can a poorly formed cue still have an effect if a large Kinesphere is used?

Somatic Learning

All movement might benefit from a keen somatic awareness, that is, a sensitivity to the internal messages delivered to the brain by proprioceptors in joints, ligaments, and tissues. This first-person awareness of the body and movement is essential for effective communication, vivid expression, and healthy movement on the podium. Sensitizing students to an internal awareness can also be an overall teaching philosophy, pervading the learning process with minimal changes in the curricula. This philosophy requires teachers to motivate students to discover knowledge from their own internal awareness and searching, asking questions and presenting problems to solve rather than explaining information. While simply providing answers may seem a quicker means to an end, students that discover answers somatically or from internal messages might embody the learning for much longer. 170 Examples of verbal phrases used for teaching with a somatic philosophy might be, “Notice how the left half of your body reacts when turning to cue the flutes on the right” or, “Decide how you will use your rib cage during this fermata.” These phrases assist students to form their own realizations rather than, “Make sure the left side of your body continues to engage the rest of the ensemble while your right hand cues the flutes” or,

“Make sure you don’t hold your breath while asking the ensemble to hold during the fermata.”

170 Kent De Spain examines the impact of the somatic experience on improvisation in his dissertation: Kent S. De Spain, “Solo Movement Improvisation: Constructing Understanding Through Live Somatic Experience.” (DEd diss., Temple University, 1997).

94 Another hallmark of somatic philosophy is asking students to revisit their experiences through journaling, drawing a picture of the sensations, or group discussion. It is more important that students share their somatic experience rather than relying upon the third-person observations of others. There is only a small difference between the two, but learning somatically will have more meaning for each individual if they make their own realizations. Students are encouraged to describe their own sensations as a performer while others are on the podium. As the class describes its own somatic experiences, the rest of the class can learn by becoming aware of possibilities for sensitivities they may not have experienced. The atmosphere created from somatic-driven lessons can be conducive to the subjectivity inherent in creative endeavors, rather than relying on objective tasks that search for the right or wrong way of doing something.

One of the somatic methods that can be incorporated into the conducting curriculum is the work of Irmgaard Bartenieff and her students. Bartenieff’s Patterns of Total Connectivity discussed in Chapter Four (breath, core-distal, head-tail, upper-lower, body half, cross-lateral) can become pervasive in a conducting course without displacing other material. 171 Often, the obstacles conductors face on the podium may be due to a weak connectivity pattern and time can be saved by improving connectivity from the beginning of a conducting course. The connectivity patterns could be addressed with entire classes or melded with the current curriculum as the examples in Table 5 demonstrate. Devoting several classes early in the course would make comparing the patterns to one another and discovering personal pattern affinities or weaknesses much easier. However, each teacher will have a better understanding of their students, class climate, and personal comfort with somatic topics and will ultimately decide the best method of implementation. Whatever pace is chosen, improving weak areas of connectivity will potentially

171 Hackney, 51.

95 have residual benefits in all areas of the conductor’s experience– physical, conceptual, relational, and creative experiences, to name a few.

Examples: The conducting text by Hunsburger and Ernst 172 addresses the following topics in the first two chapters (in order): posture, preparatory gestures, releases, 4 and 3 beat patterns, articulation styles, two beat patterns, dynamics, ambidextrous conducting, communicating the ictus visually, alternative pattern style. 173 As an example to stimulate a teacher’s own ideas, Table 6 below demonstrates how Bartenieff’s six connectivity patterns can be implemented simultaneously with the early chapters of the Hunsberger and Ernst text:

172 Donald Hunsberger and Roy E. Ernst, The Art of Conducting (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992). 173 Hunsberger and Ernst, vii, viii.

96 Table 5. Integrating Bartenieff Connectivity Patterns into Traditional Conducting Texts

Bartenieff Hunsberger Implementation Patterns Topic

Breath Posture First, students lay on the ground and begin to notice what happens to their bodies as they breathe. What happens to the distance between their chin and rib cage, between their abdomen and hips? Then, while standing, they can begin to notice the same tendencies. This will help in finding a relaxed position in which the body remains flexible. Finally, students could use their breath to motivate their arms into a beginning conducting position; inflating the arms rather than simply bringing them up.

Core- Preparatory At the heart of core-distal movement is the idea of Distal, Gesture bringing energy in and then sending it out to the far Breath ends of the body and beyond. Begin class by improvising these kinds of movements while reinforcing the breath’s motivation in all movements. Finally, when the concept of preparatory gesture is introduced, draw on the somatic sensations that have been discovered to gather energy and send energy that is motivated by the breath.

Head-Tail Releases The standard release is a circular motion. Have students explore circular motions in their spine, from their head at the top to their tail bone. Can each vertebrae make a circular motion? Next, have students practice in pairs doing releases with their spine, starting from the head and then experimenting with other parts of the spine while being aware of the entire spine. Finally, extend the arms in the standard conducting ready position and notice what happens if the spine motivates the arms. Often the head is used to indicate a release but is inadvertently disconnected from the torso.

97 Bartenieff Hunsberger Implementation Patterns Topic

Upper- Four and While lying on the floor, students create small Lower Three Beat motions with their legs in the air that explore the Patterns three planes (up/down, side-to-side, forward/backward). Play with letting the motions become bigger and smaller. Next, stand and let the upper half of the body explore the three planes. To introduce the patterns, begin to explore the arms on the vertical plane, noticing gravity’s role in the process; giving in to gravity and resisting gravity using both the upper and lower halves of the body to bring the arms up and down. When the actual patterns are introduced, ask students to continue being aware of gravity’s role in the patterns and how their lower half is involved in resisting gravity.

Breath, Style of This topic could be a review of the three patterns Head-Tail, Articulation explored so far by noticing how each individual Upper- pattern would change for the various styles, then in Lower combination of the patterns.

Body Half Two Beat The two beat pattern reflects the overall binary Patterns construction of the body. Have students envision half of their body being filled with their favorite flavor of Jello™ while the other half is free to move about. Do this with both sides and begin exploring movement alternating between the two sides. Finally, introduce the two-beat patterns.

Cross- Dynamics Dynamic gestures often have a sense of spacial Lateral volume that requires a cross-lateral awareness. Have students improvise movement with a heightened awareness to the relationship of two body parts from opposite sides of the body. The instructor can begin calling these out and eventually, students can call them out. Later, expand their awareness to three body parts. When dynamic gestures intended for conducting are explored, draw somatic attention to the participating parts of the body that are diagonal to the primary limb used.

98 Bartenieff Hunsberger Implementation Patterns Topic

Body Half Ambidextrous Begin by bringing awareness to both halves of the Conducting body and the natural division between right and left. Next, assign opposite qualities or images to each half of the body and explore the body’s reaction to these opposite environments. Try assigning the right to think architecturally with sensations of building materials. Have the left experience a lush garden with a bubbling brook flowing through it. Eventually, students can try portraying a two-pattern in their right hand while indicating smoothness or dynamic gestures in their left hand.

99 Healthy posture is an essential skill for conducting expressively and with longevity; it can effectively be achieved somatically. As Mary Bond (2007) points out, posture is an active state of motion, not a specific way that we hold ourselves or a position to which we return. It is impractical to establish good posture by observation from outside our bodies. The active nature of posture may require conducting educators to rethink the role of posture for the conductor. The position of spine, torso, rib cage, and all of the body affects the position of the baton, with the arms merely playing out the possible motions established by the complex foundation supporting them. I believe that unless conductors become somatically aware of the role posture plays in all movement, many problems that beginners and advanced conductors experience cannot be addressed. Conducting teachers are encouraged to seek education in some of the somatic methods examined previously in Chapter Four–Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind-

Centering, Ideokinesis, Franklin Method, as well as the resources quoted in the Appendix from

Mary Bond’s, The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World. 174

One way to include somatic methodologies into the conducting curriculum in lieu of instructors being trained themselves, is through video sessions produced by various methods. As stated in Chapter Four, the Feldenkrais Method has several audio recordings of sessions that can be given as assignments for students to do in their homes. 175 The scope of this project does not allow a complete review of these materials, but my own personal experience with some of these recordings have proven beneficial. Current conducting text books are not adequately preparing conductors to use their body on the podium to creatively communicate to the ensemble; new

174 Mary Bond, The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 2007). 175 An exhaustive list of audio and video recordings can be found at www.feldenkrais.com as well as resources for finding workshops and practitioners.

100 pedagogies are needed. Dance education has been developing methods to educate creative and healthy movement for decades.

Changes in conducting movement and posture will also result in a change of how a conductor functions. This interrelation of movement and function is well documented. Frances

Bruce (2003) writes, “A change in habitual patterns of movement is reflected in a change in habitual patterns of function, and a change in any other aspect of function is reflected in changes in patterns of movement.” 176 The inclusion of somatic methods may result in new attitudes that could improve leadership, relationships, and even how music is perceived by the conductor. It is hard to imagine fluidity of movement if there is a rigidity of personality or, conversely, someone who is truly relaxed moving rigidly. For conducting pedagogy, this interrelationship implies that any problem on the podium, whether it is rehearsing, musical conception, confidence, or leadership, may require an adjustment of movement patterning as well as a new thought process.

These new patterns of movement require a somatic awareness that conducting pedagogy has just begun to address.

Dance Improvisation

A conductor’s movement is one side of an artistic dialogue with an ensemble–the ensemble communicating in sound and the conductor in movement. Including dance improvisation in the conducting curricula has the potential to strengthen movement’s dynamic role on the podium. I believe dance improvisation will by its very nature encourage creativity when approaching conducting. Students can expand their movement vocabulary; become comfortable moving and expressing themselves physically in front of others; become more

176 Bruce, vi.

101 sensitive to the movement of others; deepen somatic awareness; and make deeper connections between movement and sound. I argue that improvised movement is key to teaching new concepts specific to movement theory and somatics, but it can also be included in any part of the conducting curricula.

Example: When introducing mixed meter, begin with chairs spaced in a circle at regular intervals about two steps apart. Have students walk around the circle using two steps per chair, stepping in unison. Notice the group’s tempo and set a metronome so that it sounds at the interval where students should reach the chair (every other step). Ask the students to use two steps to reach the first chair they meet, then use a different number of steps to reach the next chair, then two steps again, then their choice, and so on. They must reach each chair precisely on the pulse of the metronome. After observing accomplishment of the excercise, stop and let students discuss their personal experiences with the activity. Hopefully they will come to the realization that this was the subdivision of the beat.

Set the metronome to sixty beats per minute. Ask students to begin noticing their breath and how it naturally seeks to relate to the pulse. Instruct them to begin mentally grouping the pulses into two and notice if there is a part of the body that seems to enjoy the motion of groups of two beats. The students begin moving this part of the body in groups of two pulses. They come to rest, and mentally group the pulses in three. They repeat the exercise. While the students are improvising, change the instructions to groups of pulses alternating between two and three.

The instructor can change pulse groups to any type of numbers or groups. If the activity appears to be too easy or unsatisfying the instructor can add challenges such as only using the lower half of the body; moving like they are a vapor; or making contact with an object in the room at the beginning of each pulse grouping. Finally, the class can study standard multimeter patterns and

102 relate the third-person information to the creative somatic affinity that they established through improvisation. Verbalizing their own experiences are an important part of the learning process for everyone.

Another course in the dance curriculum that might benefit a conductor’s education is a course in anatomy. Undergraduate conductors could fulfill their general science requirements by taking anatomy or ideally, anatomy for dancers or therapists. Margaret H’ Doubler constantly referred to a skeleton in her lessons to deepen dancers’ understanding of their instrument. 177

Having a small model of a skeleton in a conducting classroom might increase students’ somatic sense of the body’s architecture and could aid the instructor if references need to be made to physical aspects of conducting. Deeper understandings about the physicality of conducting may make the difference in the longevity of a conductor’s career.

Summary

Dance pedagogy focuses on educating dancers to move intelligently, creatively, and healthily, all goals that also benefit a conducting student. The teaching of philosophy of Margaret

H’Doubler values the individualized development of creative and intelligent movement above virtuosic movement. She spent most of her career working with students who had little previous formal movement training. Since many conducting students have had little formal movement instruction, H’Doubler’s methods are especially poignant for conducting classrooms. The core courses in dance pedagogy also have many applications for the conducting classroom.

Movement analysis can expand students’ previous movement habits, sensitize students to the movement of others, and give a theoretical language to describe movement. Somatic coursework

177 Ross, 103.

103 can help students learn to perceive the internal messages from their body. Somatic topics can be included parallel to the topics introduced in a traditional conducting text book. Dance improvisation closely resembles the unplanned dialogue between a conductor and the ensemble.

Inclusion of movement improvisation in the curriculum is essential for young conductors.

Coursework in anatomy may also benefit conducting students in that they will be more aware of their physical structures that perform their movements.

104 CHAPTER SIX

Conclusions

Through the movement of our body we can learn to relate our inner self to the outer world. –Lisa Ullmann 178

The flow of movement fills all our functions and actions; it discharges us of detrimental inner tensions; it is a means of communication between people, because all our forms of expression, such as speaking, writing, and singing are carried by the flow of movement. –Rudolf Laban 179

Conducting pedagogy’s discontent with teaching only objective tasks such as beat patterns is supported by the studies reviewed in Chapeter Two that searched for effective teaching methods in other disciplines. Conducting requires skills in multiple areas; analysis, movement, creativity, leadership, and oration to name a few, and many approaches are needed to address these skills. Dance pedagogy is an obvious area that might address a conductor’s need to move clearly, healthily and expressively. Originally music and dance were inseparable and only later specialized in their respective arts. 180 Previous conducting scholarship involving dance has focused only on a small portion of one aspect of dance instruction–that being the Effort Qualities of Rudolf Laban. 181 This is a powerful component of Laban’s work, but this project explored sources beyond Laban’s Effort Qualities to a broader perspective of a dancer’s training in higher education. This project sought answers for three main questions:

1) What is dance’s history in higher education and how does that influence the instruction

of expressive movement?

178 Laban and Ullmann, 109. 179 Ibid., 97. 180 Brehm and McNett, 13. 181 Several studies were reviewed in Chapter Two that relied on Laban’s Effort Qualties: Benge, 1996; Gallops, 2005; Grechesky, 1986; Haynes, 1994; Sousa, 1988; Toney, 2000.

105 2) What is the curriculum for a dance major, and how do dance’s core subjects

enhance the education of expressive movement?

3) How can dance’s pedagogy and history enhance conducting pedagogy and improve

creative leadership on the podium through movement?

The history of dance in higher education provides a context for viewing current dance pedagogy in a clearer light by: 1) providing a context for dance’s original inclusion into higher education; 2) tracing the philosophical discourse over decades of research and performance practice; and 3) identifying the origins of various teaching methods still in use today. The

University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department’s historic role as the first undergraduate dance major in the country made its dance curriculum especially interesting for this study.

Margaret H’Doubler, the program’s founder, focused her instruction exclusively on the creative development of the individual. 182 This development included extensive training in the physical development of the dancer, personal development, studies in science and humanities, and dance improvisation. H’Doubler’s approach is especially poignant for conducting pedagogy because she was working with students that had little previous formal education in movement, just as new conducting students might have little formal education in creative and expressive movement.

Later, academic dance focused less on the development of the person and aimed more to prepare future professional dancers. Evidence of H’Doubler’s philosophies, scientific approach, and teaching methods can be found in programs across the country, such as the inclusion of anatomy and improvisation in curricula.

Dance pedagogy’s history offers new perspectives on conducting pedagogy. Conducting pedagogy in higher education originated with a viewpoint opposite from H’Doubler’s belief in

182 Hagood, 16.

106 the creative development of self. Instead, early collegiate conducting pedagogy relied on a preparation that was objectively based in beat patterns and mimicry rather than on the creative development of the individual. 183 The multiple conducting studies in the past thirty years that focus on expression, Laban, and other trans-disciplinary subjects are a reaction to conducting pedagogy’s objective beginnings. Conducting pedagogy would do well to emulate H’Doubler’s focus on the individual's creative development versus finding the correct way to perform.

Since each dance program varies greatly by size, scope, curricula, and philosophy, the current project required a narrowly focused lens, and the curriculum chosen for review was that belonging to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This curriculum represents the curricular recommendations made by Alma Hawkins in 1965. 184 Examining each course in a dancer’s curriculum would once again be far beyond the scope of any single study, so emphasis was placed on three core courses of the University of Wisconsin-Madison dance curriculum: movement analysis, somatics, and dance improvisation. Other courses in dance programming are also valuable for movement learning, but I found them either to build on information learned in the core courses, such as technique class; to contain information used exclusively by a dancer and not a conductor, such as choreography; or to repeat information closely related to courses musicians already include in their curricula, such as rhythm and music fundamentals. The three courses I examined yielded many avenues for improvement in conducting pedagogy.

Movement analysis examines the theoretical structures created by Rudolph Laban and his students. His extensive theory was organized under the framework of Body, Effort, Shape, and

Space. Conducting pedagogy has assimilated portions of Effort, but as Chapter Two explained, previous studies overemphasize the Action Drives (combinations of the Effort Qualities) or

183 See the review of Baker’s work in Chapter Two. 184 Hagood, 61.

107 display a limited exposure to Laban’s system (Aubin, 2010). Many of Laban’s ideas beyond the Effort Qualities can have an important impact on the conducting curricula. In the area of

Body, becoming more sensitive to the body’s developmental patterns of connectivity could have far-reaching benefits on the podium. Many problems conductors experience might be related to a weakness in one of the connectivity patterns described in Chapter Four and could be improved by strengthening the weak pattern. In the area of Effort, conductors would do well to understand that the Effort Qualities and their combinations describe the attitude behind the movement and not the movement itself. It is also important to maintain focus on the concepts behind the descriptions of Effort and the various combinations of Effort Qualities so students do not simply replace beat patterns with another prescribed movement such as “Slash.” From Shape, teachers must begin to include a greater exploration of the torso’s role as the support from which all limbs move. Isolation of the arms and legs from the torso can inhibit expression and potentially cause injuries. Under Space, conducting pedagogy can include sensitivity to the psychological

Kinesphere and its affect on their relationship with an ensemble.

Somatics is a relatively new domain that addresses the internal messages from the body and how these messages relate to the human experience. Somatic learning should be included in conducting pedagogy if the instructor hopes to improve the beginning conductor’s new physical relationship with music. Thomas Hanna, who first used the term somatics, claims that “the state of somatic freedom is, in many senses, the optimal human state.” 185 As described earlier in

Chapter Four, there are several somatic methods that increase somatic intelligence for healthier and more expressive movement such as the Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Body-

Mind-Centering, Ideokinesis, and Franklin Method.

185 Hanna, 351.

108 Somatic learning can also become somatic teaching. A somatic method of teaching encourages students to notice messages from their own bodies rather than relying on what an instructor tells the student to do or copying the work of others. Somatic teaching can unlock the student’s intrinsic motivation to search for a personal solution rather than to copy another’s solution. While a somatic teaching style may initially seem to take more time, the results include students who might retain learning permanently and ultimately learn to teach themselves.

Conducting pedagogy must engage somatics to address posture for conductors. Posture is an active condition rather than a held state or position. Movement and posture patterns are developed as a reaction to stress accumulated throughout a lifetime. According to Hanna, only a greater somatic awareness can accomplish the change needed. 186 Conducting pedagogy has prescribed specific ways of moving and holding a baton that can be impossible or potentially harmful to students if a healthy posture is not established first.

Conductors never dance a prepared choreography on the podium, but they are in a constant state of improvised movement. They may practice to expand their movement vocabulary or to explore the possibilities of various movements for certain passages of music, but a conductor’s purpose is not to recreate a specific movement in the same way every time.

Conductors are engaged in a conversation with the ensemble; one that requires flexibility and constant adjustment to the generated movement. These frequent changes require fluidity of style, intent, and movement vocabulary. This shifting role makes training in improvised movement an essential component of the conducting curricula. Inclusion of dance improvisation can also inject

186 Ibid.,

109 needed creativity into the conducting curriculum and reinforce somatic awareness, since movement begins from internal stimuli. 187

Implications for Future Scholarship

The relationship between dance pedagogy and conducting pedagogy hold ample potential for future inquiry.

Movement Therapy

Movement therapy uses movement as both a diagnostic tool as well as a treatment for a variety of conditions. Whereas physical therapy assesses a patient’s physical damage and works to ameliorate the condition, it typically neglects an understanding of the internal messages/motivations that cause the damage (Hanna 1979). 188 More research is needed to discern whether discoveries from movement therapy can help conductors with tension, performance anxiety, or other physical and psychological experiences. Another related study could explore each specific Bartenieff connectivity pattern to determine if it benefits conductors in definable ways.

187 Cohen. 188 Hanna, 342-3.

110 Ensemble Movement

Since the mind and the body are theorized inseparable, it is presumed that movement will affect the performance of instrumentalists and singers. 189 Further research into the mind- movement connection and its affect on musical performance is needed. If a link is demonstrated, an investigation in how to best implement movement pedagogy into performance practice could result. A string or percussion ensemble experiences overt movement by the nature of its sound production whereas wind players often perform with more subtle movement. Questions might include: How does this movement difference affect the expression possibilities for each instrument? How do inadvertent and intentional movement choices affect performance?

Similarly, a conductor of an orchestra leads a sea of coordinated movement in the strings. What is the nature of the visual or aural communication that allows players to see past the masses of heaving bows to hone in on the conductor’s movement or does the movement noise from the strings hold more sway of influence than the conductor’s movement? How does this influence change in a wind ensemble where movement is much smaller? Does the height of the music stand affect a player’s ability to discern the movement communication from those performing in front of him/her?

Instrumental Practice Methods

The benefits of intrinsic motivation are well known but the effect of creativity in the learning process, such as Margaret H’Doubler’s teaching methods, on performance remains unstudied. Studies need to examine the benefits of instrumental practice routines that focus on creativity rather than traditional, repetitive technique building. One such study could implement

189 Cohen.

111 Laban’s Effort Qualities and their combinations as a basis for practicing scales. The experimental group would be compared with a control group practicing a traditional method relying on repetition. Would accuracy, flexibility, and expression be increased by the group using creativity as the primary goal of scale work?

Ensemble’s Physical Reactions to Conductor Movement

Qualitative evidence suggests that an ensemble unintentionally performs differently for each conductor. 190 Every conductor is constantly attempting to decipher the effects their movements have on the music, but no study to date has analyzed the physical responses an ensemble member experiences depending on a conductor’s movement. Data for this analysis could be gathered using sensors placed on both the conductor and the ensemble members that measure muscle tensions as well as measurements of size, force, and speed of the gesture. Other sensors could record the brain activity ensemble members use under different conductors. A threatening stance or facial expression is assumed to create a fight or flight reaction by an ensemble, and a study of this kind could confirm or dismantle these beliefs. Since analyzing this data only by external means would deny the impact of the somatic sense, further scientific inquiry would require a somatic investigation as well; perhaps by interview or journaling. By comparing data between conductor and ensemble, a physiological and psychological correlation may be discovered as to the elusive relationship between conductor and the sound created by an ensemble.

190 Eichenberger, Rodney. What They See is What You Get, DVD (Winona: Hal Leonard, 1988).

112 Changing the Role of the Conductor

Past scholarship already suggests that ensembles receiving some movement training become more responsive to conductors. 191 Further research could examine if this relationship could be strengthened and perhaps even change the role of the ensemble. A study could give movement training to ensemble members and then ask members to communicate their intended musical expression to each other through their movement as in a chamber ensemble. Traditional chamber ensemble movement relies on vertical movement and eye contact for communicating pulse. For this study, the ensemble would be given repeated exposures to group dance improvisation. When regular rehearsal resumes, the conductor’s role would change to that of a catalyst for a group movement improvisation where the players’ bodies would subtly respond to the conductor’s movements while simultaneously creating a more overt aural expression. These results would be compared to that of a control group that receives no movement training. The comparison could examine expressivity, choices of movement, and the level of musical experience for the ensemble, conductor, and audience.

Closing Remarks

Including elements of dance’s curriculum has the potential to provide conducting students with the benefits of healthy movement, increased confidence, clearer communication, greater creativity, flexibility, more variety in movement, and heightened sensitivity. These benefits will most likely be transmitted to the musicians playing in ensembles.

Reorganizing conducting pedagogy along the information presented in this document would be advantageous for addressing the individual conducting student. More realistically, this

191 For example: Bartee, Miller, Neidlinger, Gambetta, and Aubin.

113 project intends to propose alternatives to current conducting pedagogy by providing information that can be intertwined with current practices. Improving personal movement is an ongoing process for everyone, including professional dancers. Conducting pedagogy’s inclusion of movement analysis, somatics, and dance improvisation could eventually become an accepted part of conducting curricula so that conductors might hone their movement potentials over their lifetime.

114 APPENDIX

Somatic Methods Suggested in Mary Bond’s, The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and

Move in the Modern World.

Aston Patterning Gentle bodywork, movement education, and ergonomic considerations combine to help clients find integration of body, mind, spirit, and environment.

Bodynamic Analysis This body-oriented psychotherapy focuses on removing mental and physical blocks to healthy human connections by working with the interactions between tone in specific muscles and their corresponding psychological functions.

Continuum Private and group sessions provide a context in which students develop sensitivity to the subtle movements of life, from breath and the fluid movement of tissue, to patterns of interactions with other people.

Dance Meditation An integrated movement meditation system for self-regulation and self-healing. The process enhances body-mind integration through explorations of self with self, self with others, and self with the Divine.

Guild for Structural Integration Structural bodywork following Ida P. Rolf’s original ten-session protocol to release the body’s structure from lifelong patterns of tension.

Hakomi Therapy Body-centered, somatic psychotherapy addressing the hidden core beliefs that shape relationships, self-image, and life directions.

Hellerwork Structural Integration Enhanced body consciousness through structural bodywork, movement education, and dialogue on emotional themes.

International Association for Structural Integrators A professional association whose membership is open to practitioners trained at any of fourteen schools that espouse the teachings and philosophy of Ida Rolf.

115 ISMETA The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association maintains a professional registry of practitioners of various somatic movement disciplines. 192

192 Mary Bond, The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 2007).

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