Book Review: "Creative Rhythmic Movement: Boys and Girls Dancing"

This is a simple and straight-forward book on the concept of Creative Rhythmic Movement and how to teach it to children in elementary school. It includes theoretical aspects, such as a discussion o what the term Creative Rhythmic Movement means and its contributions to the school curriculum, as well as practical aspects, such as dance activities to develop locomotor and non-locomotor movement skills, dance patterns, and appropriate and entertaining folk and social dances.

Gladys Andrews Fleming divides dancing children in two periods: that of "I" in early childhood, and that of "I and We", in which group dance coordinated movements and forms can be developed through cooperation. In both cases, the focus is to teach children how to best utilize their bodies as an instrument of expression, by fostering their creativity, developing their sense of rhythm, and perfecting their movement skills, augmenting their understanding of movement, and varying their movement vocabulary. Teaching children about movement includes the understanding of the difference between locomotor and non-locomotor basic movement elements (space, time and force), symbolism, rhythm heard in music and felt in movement, percussion, and how to combine movements.

The third part of the book is entirely dedicated to help teachers initiate movement and dance in their students. This process can get started using movement, ideas, names, adventures, music, art, books, sensory awareness, exploration or key questions. The author gives clues unto how to utilize or all this movement initiation techniques, and delves specially into chants and dance songs, their purpose, characteristics, and examples on how to use them to provoke the children to move creatively and rhythmically. Additionally, a whole chapter is dedicated to utilizing ideas, associations, and feelings to help children relax.

I found this book to be a helpful handbook for the dance, art, or physical educator meaning to teach children about movement, the basic elements of dance, and the concepts of rhythm, through activities that develop creativity.