Modern and Ballet, especially in relation to Music and Jaques-Dalcroze’s work.
My sister Karen is going through boxes of our parents’ memorabilia. One of the things she shared is the Dale family’s 1960 Christmas letter, perfectly typed by my mother. The two pages recount the year's events including the birth of my sister Melissa ("very throaty, no head resonance") and my father’s second appearance at [...]
"These experiences lead to a richer more meaningful life. Also, the understanding of how to dance together in a group, I think, answers a contemporary need." - Mary Ann Brehm
Research award to support study of MusiKinesis® in urban Baltimore The Sherman Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities is pleased to announce its 2020-2021 research fellow, Monica Dale, Music Coordinator & Adjunct Faculty in UMBC’s Dance Department. Ms. Dale will work with early childhood educators at Arundel Elementary School to investigate the effects [...]
Special Features of This Year's MusiKinesis® Courses Daily classes in eurhythmics, teaching techniques, repertory, improv/composition and related areas form the foundation. Plus, the programs in both Baltimore and Rochester include a rich variety of added experiences, too! Baltimore County – July 8-12 This week will feature guest classes from experts in their fields. Teaching Children [...]
Freda Miller Modern Dance Musician, 1911-1960 Remember Modernism? Soon after women won their right to vote, they began the audacious exploration of dance as their own art form. Women were often their musical collaborators, as well. Here I'll introduce you to a significant one: Freda Miller. The staples of suburban dance studios seem to reference [...]
Inside out <-> Outside in We’ve all heard the phrase, “dance like nobody’s watching.” It’s a cliché now, but it caught on because it means something… Something about feeling free in one’s own space, and therefore happy. Not that freedom to feel always means feeling happy. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have come up with so many [...]
I've posted a new "Idea to Try" inspired by Leonard Bernstein's Turkey Trot from Divertimento for Orchestra. Along the way, I got sidetracked researching the history of the ragtime dance (circa 1912) from news sources of the time. Take a look and discover: Three incidents of women getting in trouble for indulging in the dance [...]
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze I was invited to write this article for Le Rythme, an annual international journal of FIER. This year's theme was L'interprétation corporelle - the idea of reflecting music in movement. Once a guiding force in modern dance, 'music visualization' might have lost its purpose 75 years ago or might remain vital today, depending on [...]
23 Historic Modern Dance Musicians One of the sessions I presented at this week's International Conference of Dalcroze Studies (ICDS3) was on Piano Music for Modern Dance. I began researching these musicians because I wanted to know what music early modern dancers heard in their daily studies. After all, modern dance and modern music once [...]
‘’Often I thought to myself, what a mistake to call me a dancer – I am the magnetic centre to convey the emotional expression of the Orchestra.” - Isadora Duncan “I couldn’t move, I don’t even want to move, unless I hear the music first. I couldn’t move without a reason, and the reason is [...]
