Plastique Animée, an Art and an Education

by Jack Stevenson, DJ-D

Once having experienced classes in Jaques-Dalcroze rhythmics, solfège, and improvisation, students become adept
at creating movement while simultaneously imagining music and conversely capable of creating music while
simultaneously envisioning movement. After several years of study, Dalcrozians experience the various
parameters of music as physical sensations. Inevitably, the body, mind, and will merge, and the body becomes a
finely tuned instrument capable of responding intelligently and artistically to every musical vibration almost
instinctively. These sensations produce images in the brain that chart the direction and shape of any given piece
of music after having been refined and consciously labeled.

These images are seen simultaneously as two specific drawings. The first is a picture of music notation while the
other is an image of a human being or group of human beings moving through space with time and energy. Both
images and their corresponding sensations are brought together first for the analysis of the score and then for its
physical performance. The final product takes the form of dance, in which the choreography demonstrates how it
is totally married with and dependent upon the music. The final product must pass the litmus test. Can I watch
the movement and hear the music, and can I listen to the music and see the movement? Only once having arrived
at this plateau is the Dalcrozian ready to embark on the study of plastique animée as a performance medium.

Plastique is not for the novice. The art form requires subtlety, maturity, and artistry that can only come with a
well-ordered and a well-regulated background in Jaques-Dalcroze Education. Plastique is not for the meek or weak
of heart either because it requires knowledge and above all, discipline.
The learner must understand that the Jaques-Dalcroze educational process
must first be allowed to align and balance the body in the horizontal and
vertical planes. Also, it must regulate the body's nervous system, and
develop the technical prowess necessary to move with agility, poise, and
resistance through space in time and on time. Furthermore, this special
education must have the opportunity to train and refine the ear so that it
may provide images of musical notation and physical movement in the
brain. Dalcrozians must be able to see what they hear and to hear what
they see. Only after all of this is accomplished by a complete flow of this
educational endeavor is the Dalcrozian ready to begin the study of
Plastique Animèe.

In this sense, plastique becomes the pinnacle experience within the Jaques-Dalcroze educational process. It
becomes the aim of everything ever done in any of the three principal branches. The quality of movement and
the design of the choreography all work together to produce an image that clearly exposes analytical and aural
skill, physical prowess, imagination, creativity, discipline, and adaptability. When moving, the human being is
uncovered and vulnerable, and therefore, unable to hide who and what they are.

Jaques-Dalcroze piano improvisation, sometimes recognized as the principal performance medium of a Jaques-
Dalcroze Education is, in fact, a very specialized discipline and one not primarily designed to produce performing
improvisationalists. The Dalcrozian must learn to improvise on rhythmic and melodic themes, harmonize bass
lines and melodies, improvise in specific forms and styles and learn to follow and insight movement. Pursuing

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these particular skills is important because they work extremely well to develop the ear and eye, the aural and
cognitive memory, and keyboard facility. All of these exercises allow the improvisation to be entertaining but also
allow the improvisation to evoke, enhance, and control all forms of physical movement.

Bass lines are powerful tools and when allowed to move freely in the left hand, can motivate the body to flow
forward through the phrase. In other words, the left hand learns to provide propulsion. Chords, in addition to
all sorts of melodic embellishments placed in the right hand, produce resistance and release, rhythmic and
melodic impulse, and the subtle nuances associated with time and dynamics. In other words, the right learns to
provide flow. These skills are far more refined and often more difficult to acquire than the art of improvisation
alone. Remember, it is not how flashy the improvisation may be, but how effective it is when used in the
eurhythmics and solfège classrooms. The measure of a Dalcrozian’s effectiveness in the classroom is linked
directly to the ability to follow, incite, and inspire physical motion.

The piano improvisation is the primary teaching tool in the educational experience. So, are the students
entertained or are they educated? To a large extent, it must be the both. However, the primary use of piano
improvisation is to educate. Keep in mind that Jaques-
The Jaques-Dalcroze Approach Dalcroze piano improvisation is a tool for teaching
ics pro
Im visat eurhythmics, eurhythmics is a tool for teaching solfège, and
hm solfège is a tool for teaching piano improvisation. It is an
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yt
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unending cycle that spins from one generation of Jaques-

Dalcroze teachers to the next.
n
ti o

Im p a
ro vis Solfège Plastique animée is a discipline through which one learns to
apply the Jaques-Dalcroze principles, solfège subjects,
eurhythmics subjects, and improvisation skills both physical
and musical to the analytical study of music literature. The study is expressed not in theme papers, diagrams or
charts, but rather through a human expression of an individual or a group of individuals moving through space.
Learner becomes the performer, and analysis becomes art. Here, Jaques-Dalcroze Education ascends out of the
learning experience toward the sophistication of an art form — an art form unique among other forms of music
and dance, having as its basis the marriage of movement and music.

Most understand that Dalcroze played a pivotal role in the inception of European and American modern dance.
This is important for Dalcrozians to understand so that the historical thread of Plastique does not get crossed with
the trends in modern dance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

“Sometimes his influence was not appreciated, and his opinions would be revised or rejected outright, but in
the ten years before World War I he was an energizing presence in the developing domains of modern dance,
choreography, and movement theory.”1

The influence on European modern dance begins with Suzanne Perrottet (1889-1983), a Genevois, who studied
with M. Jaques from the age of ten. In 1905, she began following M. Jaques throughout Europe on tour and
eventually followed him to Hellerau where she became his principal piano teacher and assistant. There she taught
six eurhythmics lesson and ten piano improvisation classes per week. Nevertheless, she decided to distance herself

1Lee, James William “Dalcroze by any other name: Eurhythmics in Early Modern Theatre and Dance” Pg 80. Dissertation, Texas Tech
University, 2003

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from M. Jaques primarily because they did not agree any longer on the idea that music was the force behind the
movement. Miss Perrottet was beginning to formulate her ideas about movement and came to the conclusion that
movement could exist without music. Therefore, she decided it was best to accept M. Jaques’ offer to establish a
branch of the Dalcroze School in Vienna. In the meantime, Suzanne
met and eventually married Rudolf Laban who's philosophy on dance
was more aligned with hers. A year later she severed her relationship
with M. Jaques completely and his method and joined Lebon at an
artist colony at Ascona in Italian Switzerland. She and Lebon had
one son. She performed as a dancer and pianist with Laban,
Wigman, (also known as Marie Wiegmann), Hugo Ball, and Emmy
Hennings in Zurich. In 1919, she opened her school of dance which
continued well into the1970s.

Nevertheless, before severing her relationship with M. Jaques she had

the opportunity to teach Marie Wiegmann (1886-1973), while in HELLERAU, GERMANY
Hellerau. They quickly became close friends and even shared many of
the same ideas about dance. Marie finished her studies in 1913, and
even though M. Jaques had offered her a contract to direct the Berlin Dalcroze School she decided to decline the
offer and pursue her ideas about choreography. She, like Perrottet and subsequently Leban, was interested in
dance becoming an independent art that would be non-reliant on music and its various forms. They wanted to
explore movement without music. It is interesting to note that Perrottet, Wiegmann and others had approached
M. Jaques about the idea of silent movement, but he refused to allow any experimentation of movement without
the guiding force of music behind it. In the mind of Jaques-Dalcroze, music and movement were inseparable and
to move in silence or even in contrast to the music was simply sacrilegious.

Around the same time, a Polish student arrives on the scene by

way of Paris. Her name was Cyvia Rambam (1888-1982) but
used the name, Myriam Ramberg. She adopted this new
identity after having to escape Poland and move to Paris because
of political uprisings. While in Hellerau, she had the
opportunity to meet Sergei (Serge) Diaghilev (1872 – 1929), an
art critic, patron ballet and impresario. He asked her to teach
the Dalcroze Method at his newly founded Ballets Russes and to
help Vaslav Nijinsky (1889 - 1950) with the choreography of
Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps. Then after a year or so and once
the Wold War I began, she changed her name once more to
DIAGHILEV NIJINSKY
Marie Rambert and moved to England to found the first British
dance company, Ballet Rambert, which is now called Rambert
Dance Company.

American modern dance can be traced back to several individuals. First, Marion Kappes, who had studied in
Hellerau, taught Dalcroze eurhythmics at the first Denishawn school of dance in Los Angeles, which opened in
1915. The school was founded by Ruth St. Denis (1879 - 1968) and Ted Shawn (1891 - 1972). Ruth St. Denis was
most famous for her danced representation of music known as “visualizations.” She is known to have denied that

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her visualizations had any connection to Dalcroze techniques. She would claim that she and Dalcroze both strived
to understand music by way of movement.
“In the early 1920's, with a small troupe that included Denishawn student Martha Graham (1894-1990), Shawn
toured from Los Angeles to New York with dances on Native American themes. Shawn opened a branch of the
Denishawn School in New York, and Graham became his assistant. Shawn's continuing commitment to Dalcrozian
principles is demonstrated by his hiring of a fully qualified eurhythmics teacher, Elsa Findlay. Findlay had been a
Hellerau student and was the daughter of English educator and Dalcroze enthusiast J. J. Findlay.”2 ‑

The Denishawn School offered an eclectic program of courses, from yoga and Asian religions to Jaques-Dalcroze
eurhythmics and Delsarte’s Science of Applied Aesthetics.

Francois Delsarte (1811 - 1871) was a French musician who studied voice at the Paris Conservatory. After having
lost his voice, he developed the Science of Applied Aesthetics by observing people move in various situations. The
system examined the voice, breath, movement dynamics, and all of the expressive elements of the human body. It
spread throughout the world and was a huge success in America.3

Based on the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity, his theory divided all categories into three parts. It may be
important to note that he was raised by a Catholic priest who took him in after he was orphaned and wondering
the streets of Paris.

•His system is divided in three parts:

•the statics (concerned with bodies at rest and forces in equilibrium)
•the dynamics (concerned with the motion of bodies under the action of forces)
•and the semiotics (a study of signs and symbols)
•The body is divided in three zones:
•the physical (corresponds to the inferior members (legs)
•the emotional (corresponds to the trunk and arms)
•the mental (corresponds to the neck and head)
•He states that there are three languages:
•the affective, transmitted through the voice
•the elliptic, expressed through gestures
•philosophical, maligned by the articulated word
•Movement is of three orders:
•opposition
•parallelism
•succession, according to the intervention of the physical, emotional or
mental parts
•Movement is of three categories:
•eccentric (not having the axis of the body placed normally)
•concentric
•normal

2Lee,James William “Dalcroze by any other name: Eurhythmics in Early Modern Theatre and Dance” Pg 91. Dissertation, Texas Tech
University, 2003

3 “Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. François Delsarte, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 3 December, 2015. Web. 05 September, 2015.

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•There are three laws of movement (The laws of harmonic movement):
•Law of the harmonic posture: there is a need to obtain a balanced and natural attitude like the position of
perfect rest in Greek statues
•Law of opposed movement: every movement of one or several parts of the body demands, for balance
principles, an opposed movement of the rest of the segments.
•Law of the harmonic muscular function or the succession of contractions: the force of a muscular function
must be in direct relationship with the size of the muscles. Therefore, movement should start from the big
muscles that surround the pelvis.4

Author's Note: It is interesting to note that I have used these same three
“Laws of Harmonic Movement” in my work. I learned them from Madeleine
Hussy while I attended the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute in Geneva (1973-1975).

Another important figure in American modern dance is Hanya Holm (1893 - 1992), born as Johanna Eckert.
She attended Dalcroze school throughout her childhood and young adult life while living in Germany. At the
age of 28, she met Mary Wigman and decided to continue her dance career at the Wigman School in Dresden
where she soon became a member of the company. In 1931, she immigrated to New York to open the first Mary
Wigman school of dance in the United States. It eventually became known as the Hanya Holm Studio and
continued until 1967.

“The foregoing appraisal represents only the lighting of the fuse of modern dance. That fuse was ignited
by Jaques-Dalcroze by means of the 1912-13 departures of his three students: Perrottet, Wigman,and
Rambert. Two of the three materially contributed to the early work of Rudolf von Laban as he was
formulating his principles of movement. The hundreds of pupils who were taught directly by Laban,
Perrottet, and Wigman must be multiplied in turn by their hundreds of students who became teachers,
and so on in a geometric progression. Elsa Findlay was taught and licensed by Dalcroze and, in turn,
she taught Graham, Humphrey, and Wiedman, who also had hundreds of pupils during their careers.”5

From this historical account it becomes obvious that Jaques-Dalcroze was not interested in modern dance or any
form of dance even though he prepared at least three important students who left him and transformed the
modern dance world. Throughout his career, Jaques-Dalcroze maintained the principle that the movement came
out of and serviced the music throughout his career and instilled that same principal in many of his students aside
from Perrottet, Wiegmann, and Rambert. These people included Edith Naef, Madeleine Hussy, Monica Jaquet,
among others. For them, Plastique Animèe was an art form completely dependent on the music. Furthermore,
the idea of "silent movement" was never a topic for discussion among any of them.

The importance of the final product, the plastique, cannot be understated because the public at large sees it, and
judges it. However, that product, that final choreography will not reflect the principals of movement and music
nor the philosophy of the Jaques-Dalcroze Method without the authentic process. As stated earlier, the Jaques-
Dalcrozian process is born out of eurhythmics, solfège, and improvisation. The three principal branches work to
prepare the student musically, physically, and mentally to create movement in space that depict the form,

4 “Contemporary dance.Org.” François Delsarte, Maria Naranjo, Editor. No date. Web. 05 September, 2015.

5Lee, James William “Dalcroze by any other name: Eurhythmics in Early Modern Theatre and Dance” Pg 93. Dissertation, Texas Tech
University, 2003

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function, and beauty of a piece of music. It is a preparation that leads to an effective choreography, one that
stands alone.

For a choreography to stand alone, it must entice and excite the eye and reinforce the ear. It must be cohesive and
free of distraction in its rendering. Therefore, the set design, props, lighting, and costuming must work in concert
to focus on the human body and how the body depicts the musical score. But, above all, the choreography must
be artistic, sensual, passionate, and yet natural in its expression of human emotion and human movement. All of
this is why it is so important that students have sufficient experience in Dalcroze Education before endeavoring to
build a choreography suitable for public scrutiny.

It is not to say that less experienced students should not work on plastique animèe. On the contrary, the process
of creating the choreography is the most valuable and rewarding experience within the entire Jaques-Dalcroze
approach. How else is the student to learn the process except through the experience? The process invites
inquiry, experimentation, invention, cooperation, creativity, imagination, and coordination among peers.
However, the compositions should always be chosen based on the student's physical level and the student's musical
and intellectual ability to anatomize musical works.

The first task in any plastique project is to find musicians who are capable and willing to rehearse and perform
live in public. The sound musicians are valuable partners in the creative process who's opinions and ideas carry
the same significance as those of the movement musicians or plasticians. There is no substitution for sound
musicians who perform live at every rehearsal and every performance. The intimate involvement and spontaneity
provided by the live sound musician promotes listening and sensitizes one to subtle and unexpected changes in a
musical performance. It also helps to train the plastician to remain mindful and present so that the concentration
is strengthened and sustainable through the performance.

The spontaneity provided by live musicians helps to train the Plastician to remain mindful, present, and ready to
adjust to any subtle change in tempo or dynamic nuance. Also, the sound musicians provide valuable feedback on
structure and form as will as dynamics, agogic nuance, and emotional impact.

However, no one lives in a perfect world. Concessions are always necessary no matter what the situation or
circumstance. The live musicians can record the piece or pieces of music. The recording is useful for rehearsals
where the sound musicians can not be present. In any case working with larger ensembles like a choir or orchestra
always presents problems with rehearsal and collaboration. The conductor is happier when making all the
musical decisions, and therefore, a recording produced by the ensemble is the only workable solution. This
solution can also work when the live musicians or large ensemble cannot be present while on tour. In this case, it
is best if an updated recording can be made prior to the tour.

Using professional recordings is an alternative to using live music for rehearsal and performance. Of course, this
option prohibits any discussion or exchange of ideas between the sound musicians and the movement musicians.
Because this approach uses music "set in stone," it dictates the interpretation from the outset scuttling any
opportunity for discovery or experiment. Using “canned music” where every crescendo, every diminuendo, every
rubato is identical at every performance and every rehearsal is the best way to desensitize the Plastician. When
doing any activity for any length of time, it is so easy to become complacent, to stop listening, and simply go
through the motions by rote.

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At both the college, high school and professional level, the approach to the choreography is the same. The
journey begins with several eurhythmics lesson that lead to the learning of the composition. The eurhythmics and
even solfège lesson would expose the musical parameters of the piece and allow the students first to explore, and
study them in and out of the context of the composition. It also means that the students have a clear
understanding of the tonality and tonality shifts, which implies harmonic structure. Furthermore, having had
solfège and eurythmics lesson on the composition assures that the students understand the metric and rhythmic
structure, and the form.

There is one director but many choreographers. Each member of the ensemble including the sound musician(s)
handles developing the choreography. The process continues with movement improvisation to one section of the
piece or one phrase of the piece at a time. After listening and improvising, the group examines the score to
compare what they experienced with their minds and bodies with the score. They return to improvising with the
aim of finding a specific movement or set of movements that in their opinion best suit what the music is
formulating structurally and aesthetically.

Now it’s the director's turn to filter through the ensemble’s work, and then envision which movement idea would
best suit the overall structure of the choreography. Often the sound musician can be helpful with this task since
they are also intimately linked to the music. Once decided it may be necessary for a member of the ensemble to
teach the others an exact movement or collaborate with others on a specific set of movements. The director must
also carefully monitor the plasticians quality of movement with a discerning eye and work to refine and develop
the movement technique. A technique is accomplished by creating special physical exercises (always executed with
improvised music) that develops technical skill for specific movement ideas. Some of these ideas may include
contractions, spirals, turns, jumps, skips, walks, and all other pedestrian movements. Sometimes the emphasis is
placed on the breath, and the use of the body's core or the skeletal alignment, and joint articulation. Other times
emphasis is on the ease of muscular tension and the use of gravity and momentum to facilitate a specific
movement artistically in and over time and through space.

It is undeniable that body alignment, control, and balance are essential to the plastician just as scales, arpeggios,
and slurring are essential to the pianist. Although artists may disagree on specific techniques, there are correct
ways to move just as there are correct ways to play the piano. Learning correct ways to move should result in a
more natural form of movement, one that convinces the viewer that the movement is artistic and yet, authentically
human. The good idea is to keep in mind the three principles of movement developed by Francois Delsarte: First,
be sure to maintain the body in a balanced and natural posture, second, be sure to use opposed movement, and
third, always move from the pelvis.

A Jaques-Dalcroze Educator must wear two hats, one labeled music and another labeled movement. A complete
Jaques-Dalcroze educator knows as much about body movement as music and as much about music as body
movement. It is true that some Dalcrozians are better at some parameters than others. Some have a special gift
for improvisation, some for pedagogy, some for solfège, and others for movement because we are all human.
However, every Dalcrozian should have a clear understanding that music and movement are one and the same art
form. Furthermore, the use of movement will always lead to a better intellectual, aesthetic, and physical
understanding of music. These principles are unique and separate the Jaques-Dalcroze Approach from all other
forms of music education, and plastique animée is the perfect art form to demonstrate those principles.

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