Navigating Landscapes of Dalcroze Practice: Histories of Music and Movement

Navigating Landscapes of Dalcroze Practice provides new perspectives on the pioneering music education developed by Swiss composer Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), who explored how to learn music through listening, moving, singing, and improvising with the original instrument, the human body. It is the first collection of Dalcroze histories to focus on practice itself, showing how methods and ideas have moved among-and been shaped by-people performance practices, and contexts from music education and music therapy to dance, theatre and physical education. Rather than focusing primarily on Jaques-Dalcroze and his teaching, these histories reveal the collaborations of many people from various backgrounds and places over more than a century of practice.

Sixteen international authors mark out pathways into the past, exploring how Dalcroze-based teaching has transcended disciplinary boundaries and moved across borders transnationally, from Europe to Australia and North and South America. They guide us through landscapes of Dalcroze practice where music and movement provide benefits to students, teachers, and performers, as well as children, seniors, disabled people, and those with special educational needs. Demonstrating how practitioners and supporters have interacted with social, political, and educational change, the book considers the impact of two World Wars, advances in technology, and global health challenges on the evolution of Dalcroze practice.