| Chapter 2: | Legacy for Dance as a Discipline: 1917–1967 |
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Intercollegiate athletics, competition, and professional objectives were “mannish.” Blanche Trilling was a policy leader in the field in these regards. Wisconsin programs for sports and dance did not list student participants. In Moving Lessons: Margaret H’Doubler and the Beginning of Dance in American Education (2000), Janice Ross writes, “For decades, the women of Madison were the pioneers and leaders in the field of American modern dance education. For H’Doubler, this was how it should be. She never saw her program as a stepping stone to a professional career in theatrical dance. Quite the opposite was true” (163). H’Doubler embedded rejection of professional values in dance education in her pedagogy. In 1921 she articulated her approach to dance education in a small yet rather extraordinary text, A Manual of Dancing.
A Manual of Dancing is unique for several reasons. Published in 1921, it came quickly in H’Doubler’s development as a dance educator. Moreover, when compared with other dance education tracks of the day (e.g., Gertrude Colby’s 1922 text Natural Rhythms and Dances), H’Doubler’s book is quite different for its attention to fundamental neuromuscular coordination and motor control as the foundations for dance education, and for its lack of focus on presenting dance. H’Doubler attended to the needs of the individual and provided non-adjudicated opportunities to explore movement creatively.
In her introduction to the Manual, H’Doubler states that her aim in writing the book is to, “evolve a scheme of training worthy of a place in an educational curriculum” (H’Doubler 1921, 7). She discusses dance as a means of expression and writes that at the root of dancing lies movement: