Dance: A Creative Art Experience

Foreword to the 1957 Edition

Foreword to the 1957 Edition In a day and age when machines have all but conquered the world, and when man, the maker, has become the slave of his own inventions, it is not strange that we find education almost as regimented and pigeonholed as the humans who administer it. Our great factories of learning, our "free" education , have been adapted to the public which pays for them, and the materialistic demands of that public largely dominate their concepts. Creative activities, unless they lead to something called "pure science," have little chance of encouragement, though we hear much of "progressive education." Despite all this, humanity remains much the same in its essential urges, and young men and young women in our great colleges and universities and elsewhere still know the inner urge to develop and reshape their powers of expression into some new and better form. Too few educators or educational institutions yet realize that, only by fostering and developing creative activities of mind and body, permitting each student to participate in some degree, and according to his own endowments, in creative activity and expression, can we hope to renew the much-needed spiritual aspects of our life today. It is with some of these thoughts in mind that we turn to the work of the educator whose leadership in her field this book embodies . As a fellow faculty member I have watched her work in its study, example, precept, and practice since its inception in the University of Wisconsin. Beginning at a time when dance held literally no place or thought of place in the educational plan XVll Copyrighted Material FOREWORD of any academic institution in the country, the author, Margaret H'Doubler, has been chiefly instrumental in bringing dance to its present state, where it is recognized as an educational factor in a great number of schools and colleges. She more than any other one person has helped to remove dance from the realm of an applied activity, intended for a somewhat aesthetically inclined few among the students of any given institution, to its place as an accepted educational, scientific , artistic, and, above all, creative unit in the lives of students in our present collegiate setup. That her tireless energy, keen intellect, and wide study have made advanced academic degrees attainable for students in dance is, in the last analysis, not to be compared in importance to the possibilities released through creative growth of mind and body. The hundreds of students who have gone out from her classes to carry further the ideas of dance in the educational scheme or elsewhere are the finest witnesses a great teacher and leader in any field may hope to have. Only great minds can lead to greatness, to release, and to creation. Such a mind is the author of this book. XVlll GERTRUDE E. JOHNSON Associate Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin Copyrighted Material ...