Expressed succinctly eurhythmics (also spelt eurhthmics) can be defined as "harmonious bodily movement as a form of artistic expression - specifically, the Dalcroze system of musical education in which bodily movements are used to represent musical rhythms."



Eurhythmics was developed around 1905 by a Swiss musician called Emile Jaques Dalcroze. He was a Professor of Harmony at the Geneva Conservatory. He felt that the conventional way of training professional musicians was very unsatisfactory. He was looking for a way to improve his students musical abilities through increasing their sensitivity to rhythm and through this he hoped to enable them to bring deeper personal interpretations to the music they played. He believed that this would enable sstudents to experience music at a more visceral level.

His method was founded on rhythmic movements of the body, ear training and voice or instrumental improvisations. All exercises were designed to develop deeper powers of concentration and fast physical responses. The motivation and inspiration for the movement is the rythm of the music.

A eurhymics teacher needs an analytical, focussed and imaginative mind. They must be able to watch how people move and analysize that movement to use it to form the basis of an exercise. The system was about human movement as a response to musical rhythm. There are no steps or choreography to be learn. Dalcroze did not consider eurhymics to be a dance form or a type of therapy. Later it was to be used for both these purposes.

In Dalcroze's system time is shown by movements of the arms, and time duration (note values) by movements of the feet and body. For example a quarter note is shown by a single step. The teacher would play one or two bars of music which the student then actively performed as movements while the teacher played the next two bars. So the student has to listen to a new rhythm while performing the one already heard. These exercises required and helped to develop the students' concentration. Some of his exercises were deceptively simple.

Jaques Dalcroze first applied his new method to children in elementary schools. Young children are so delightfully open to trying new things without preconceived ideas. The activity just needs to hold their attention. After this in 1910 he set-up an institute near Dresden and a Central School was later established in Geneva. To-day there are institutes of eurhythmics in London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm and New York City. The method is taught in schools throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere.

I was exposed to the method as a child at school in London. My class was taught a maypole dance. All I can remember of the event is looking up at the plaited ribbons and feeling ill at ease in my drab green tunic.

Jacques Dalcroze considered the rhythmic movements in eurhythmics to be a form of musical education. As far as he was concerned they were not an end in themselves or a form of dance. Nevertheless, his methods were an important influence on 20th century theatrical dance, especially in European and American modern dance.

To early modern dancers eurhythmics were considered to be an alternative, non-balletic choreographic technique. Ruth St. Denis used eurhythmic principles in her work. Mary Wigman and Doris Humphrey, turned their backs on musically influenced choreography and developed new forms of pure dance.

In the word of ballet, Sergei Diaghilev was one of the first people to become interested in the Dalcroze system and Nijinsky's revolutionary "The Rite of Spring" choreographed in 1913 for Diaghilev's company shows strong eurhythmic influences. Marie Rambert,and Hanya Holm were pupils of Jaques Dalcroze and through them and others contemporary ballet and theatre dance have been influenced by eurhythmics.

There are many parts of the world where eurhyhmics are totally unnecessary. There are still innumerable socities where the rythms of life and music are understood at their deepest levels. In the areas of West Africa with which I am familiar mothers carry their babies tied to their backs. This way they experience every movement that she makes. When mother bends down, baby changes position in space, when she tenses her muscles, when she laughs the baby experiences the change in movment. Women dance with their babies on their backs. The amazing result is that by the time the child can walk it knows the dances having learnt them on their mothers' back.

I was doing research in Northern Ghana which is an area where dances consist of much leaping and twirling. As the men priouette their batakari's (smocks) billow out like open umbrellas. There was a transitor radio on the ground playing local music to which a little boy of about eighteen months was dancing. Round and round he whirled with a happy smile on his face. Finally he bacame dizzy and fell over. He sat in the dust waitng for the giddiness to pass. Then he got up and started to dance again. He was already dancing to the rhythm of Life. He had an understanding and knowledge which no one would ever be able to take away from him.

It would be highly misleading to give the impression that everyone in West Africa is a natural dancer. My late father Dr.S.D. Cudjoe was from the coastal area of the Volta Region in Ghana. I remember him telling me how if a man was dancing badly the drummers stopped playing, forcing the person to retire to the sidelines. However, women dancers were tolerated no matter what and the drummers continued playing!