Elemental Dance

In 1924 Dorothee Günther and Carl Orff founded a School for Gymnastics and Dance whose influence unfolded between the Weimar Republic and the end of the Second World War. In this book seven authors present the entire dance, musical, pedagogical and historical aspects of this school in which Carl Orff’s idea of Elemental Music took shape. A comprehensive documentation section comprises articles by D. Günther and C. Orff from the nineteen twenties and thirties, reviews of artistic and educational work as well as largely unpublished photograph material. Out of this there arises a multi-facetted and lively picture of a great approach to the art of dancing and an improvisatory music practise, arising out of the kindred collaboration between the dancer Maja Lex and the musician Gunild Keetman.
Michael Kugler, born 1942 in Munich, studied Musicology and School Music. After five years teaching in a High School he moved in 1973 to a lectureship at Munich University.
Since 1994 teaches privately on Music Pedagogy. Publications on Afro-American Music, Rhythmics, Orff-Schulwerk and Elemental Music and Movement Education.