🇬🇧 Feeling the rhythm - somatic learning. 🇬🇧 (English)

 Feeling the rhythm - somatic learning

The importance of Somatic learning in relation to rhythm 

What is somatic learning?

Somatic learning occurs from a conscious intention to invite the body into the learning space, to tune into the ways in which the body sends and receives information, and consideration to the diverse ways the body learns (Horst, Tara L. (2008).)

Is a theoretical intellectual understanding of rhythm necessary for the dancestudent to feel or learn rhythm? or is the body as it own the most receivable? An understanding of rhythm on an intellectual level is not necessary to experience rhythm, the experience often takes place intuitively and embodied (Lundmark, 2017). Core aspects of musical rhythm, especially "groove" and syncopation can only be fully understood in connection with their origin in the participatory social experience of dance and bodily movement (Tecumseh Fitch 2016). The body can remember pulse and rhythm when one has experienced and expressed it in motion (Nivbrant Wedin, 2011).

Rhythm learning and mathematical thinking are very different cognitive processes

Bruce Dalby (2005) writes that many music teachers try to teach rhythm through mathematical analysis of rhythmic relationships. However, this approach can be ineffective because rhythm learning and mathematical thinking are very different cognitive processes. Intellectual understanding of the arithmetic behind the rhythm is no guarantee of the ability to perform rhythms correctly. The methods of Gordon, Dalcroze and Orff emphasize that rhythm, rather than being an intellectual process such as mathematics, exists in the body itself and it must be manifested through movement to be meaningful.

Communicating rhythm verbally in teaching

There is certainly use for conceptualizing and verbally defining rhythm in teaching. Lundmark (2017) writes that the didactic choices become more by conceptualizing and communicating rhythm verbally, than simply conveying it through the body. I think that this can be a way to meet the students' individual needs and in that way you also create the opportunity to reach more students. Some seem to be more practical and others more theoretical.

In search of new/contemporary dance didactic methods

In search of new/contemporary dance didactic methods we might dig deep into other fields or intelectualice a bit too much?  Somatic learning is and has always been a powerful foundational element when it comes to the practice and teaching of dance. We as humans, and especially dancers assimilate and accumulate knowledge in their bodies in a natural way. From the perspective that dance is mainly practical, we are learning best by doing. Of course we as dance practitioners and dance teachers should continue to investigate new ways of complementing the learning by doing (somatic learning) to be able to have more didactic choices and have a broader understanding of what we are doing. All thought we should not  underestimate the diverse ways the body in it´s own learn and what's already there to be found in our senses.  

SOURCES: 

• Dalby, B. (2005). Toward effective pedagogy for teaching rhythm. Music educators journal,  54-60. downloaded: 2020-02-24 from: https://doi.org/10.2307/3400228 

• Tecumseh Fitch W. (2016). Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership.

• Lundmark, K. (2017). Rytm, kropp och dans. (Master), Stockholms konstnärliga  högskola, Stockholm)

•  Nivbrant Wedin E. (2011). Playing music with your whole body. Stockholm: Gehrmans musikförlag AB 

• Horst, Tara L. (2008). "The Body in Adult Education: Introducing a Somatic Learning Model," Adult Education Research Conferencehttps://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2912&context=aerc