TEXT
We move towards a bright future by making progress everyday, slowly, step by step. In the language of gesture the right foot extends to the side, then forwards, then moves forwards step by step, making progress in the right direction. The left leg repeats the movement. In this way we move forwards step by step along the path of life, with mind and heart at work, while the hands on the hips help us maintain stability.
“One stands with the feet together and moves one foot at a time, first to the side and then to the front, and then moves forwards. When the feet are separate.. the energy of the sun comes down. When both feet are together, the earth’s energy is transmitted to the sun.. Through these movements one develops the ability to perceive when the sun is active and when the earth is active.” [Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, p.82]
1. Text: How is the step by step movement described in the text? Write in your own beautiful words what is it that we can do step by step.
2. Drawing: Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3. Questions: A pumpkin grows in 3 months and an oak tree in 300 years. What are the advantages and disadvantages of rapid and slow growth? Give other examples of quick and slow progress and their results.
4. Experience: Tell us of situations and experiences where you have made step by step progress. What is the feeling?
5. Imagination: Imagine while you play the exercise that you are moving step-by-step towards something you desire/ something good.
6. Affirmation: Write your own positive affirmation about Step by Step. For example: Step by step I reach my goal. Every day, step by step, I develop my patience.
TEXT
This exercise is about the ability to appreciate what we have and feel thankful for it.
“One steps forwards and then rocks back and forth from one foot to the other. In the first sequence the hands are free; in the second, the partners hold hands… These movements develop the ability to appreciate nature’s bounties” [Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, p.82]
QUESTIONS
1.Text: What makes people happy in the text? Write in your own beautiful words a sentence/ essay/ poem about happiness and feeling grateful.
2.Drawing: Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3.Questions: What is happiness? What makes you happy? What is it that you are grateful for?
4.Experience:Tell us of situations and experiences when you have felt gratitude.
5.Imagination: Imagine while you play the exercise that you have everything you need – wonderful garment, freedom of expression and movement, loving friends etc.
6.Affirmations: Write a positive affirmation about How Happy We Are. For example: I am thankful for what I have.
7. Quotes: Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times (Aeschylus). Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony (Thomas Merton). Find your favorite quote for How happy we are.
TEXT
We lift one leg alternatively up in the air and squat on the other, bending knee. These movements on one leg while the other in the air, give correct outlet of the nervous energy. The volition is strengthened and volition activity is improved. These movements improve the nervous system and magnetize it. In this way one can evaluate correctly his/her action, see what is right and what is wrong and improve it at the same time. (Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, Sofia 1938)
2.Drawing: Draw a picture of balance. Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3.Questions: What makes a day beautiful? What is balance? Can you keep your balance is you act wrong?
4.Experience: Tell us of situations and experiences when you have kept your balance despite the challenges. What is the feeling?
5.Imagination: Imagine while you play the exercise that you are perfectly in control of your balance.
6.Affirmations: Write a positive affirmation about Beautiful day. For example: Today is the most beautiful day of my life.
7. Quotes: The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man (Euripides). Find your favorite quote about beautiful day.
TEXT
In Acquaintance we meet our partner face to face for the first time. We make friends and make a partnership. In the language of gesture this is the first time the partners touch their hands and look each other in the eyes.
"The partners face each other, holding hands, in pairs. Next they turn their backs to one another. This exercise is an organic way to develop self-consciousness. It says that one should appreciate the consciousness of others and see the good in the qualities they have, and the others should appreciate the good in us, in return. When the partners turn their backs, the one to the left is working on the good and the one to the right – on the truth. The center is between them. The center is love. When the partners are face to face, they move to that center, to love. Facing each other they make an ellipse. While back to each other, they make a hyperbola with the movements of their arms. The hyperbola is a method for solving big contradictions in life. It has two halves. This is the person divided, the two poles - male and female. Next, when they unite, the human being is created." (Beinsa Duno, Paneurhythmy, Sofia, 1938, p.81)
QUESTIONS
1. Text: Write in your own beautiful words a sentence/ essay/ poem about friendship.
2. Drawing: Draw a picture of Friendship. Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3. Questions: How do you make friends? How many friends do we need? What are friends about? What is the difference between a real-life friend and a virtual, over the net, friend?
4. Experience: Tell us of situations and experience when you have met for the first time one of your best friends. What was the feeling?
5. Imagination: Imagine when you turn face to face that you can glimpse into the eyes of your partner and see all the good in them, imagine they are the windows to his/her soul, two deep wells.
6. Affirmation: Write your positive affirmation on Acquaintance. For example: I can see the good in you.
7. Quotes: Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit (Aristotle). A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view (Wilma Askinas). You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you (Dale Carnegie). Find your own favourite quote for Acquaintance.
TEXT
IDEA
The idea of the exercise relates to the joy we have when we overcome some difficulty. This is the moment when we enjoy the fruit of our efforts. After a period of difficulties, working on them and solving them, comes a period when we enjoy what we have achieved. The poem (BG) is about the joy of the Sun and the Earth. In the language of gesture, with hands and feet, pointed to the ground we perform caressing the Earth like sunrays. Afterwards the arms reach upwards and forwards, like the Earth striving to the Sun and staying in its orbit. In the English poem the main character is happy for the new home s/he has and sky and Earth take part in this joy.
Exercises 17-21 are related thematically as a group. In 17.Square we have a problem situation, a task. With 18.Beauty and19.Agility we work to solve it using the hard and the mild approach. In 20.Conquering we solve and overcome it. With21.The Joy of the Earth we perform the joy of the achieved.
“This exercise begins with swinging motions, first while facing the centre and then with the back turned to the centre. This is the reward for all that we have attained. It is the making use of, and the processing of that which we have received, and the joy of its fruit. These movements are arch-like, magnetic.” [Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, p.80]
QUESTIONS
1. Text: What expression of joy can be found in the text? Why is the main character in the poem happy? Give synonyms of “joy” and “to be happy”.
2. Drawing: Draw a picture of Joy. Draw a picture of the fruits of your efforts (in a given situation). Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3. Questions: What are the fruits of the efforts of the pupil/the student/the teacher? How can you show that you are happy?
4. Experience:Tell us of situations when you have been happy with what you have achieved, with the fruits of your efforts. What is the feeling?
5. Imagination: Imagine that: 1. with the swinging movements, your feet and arms are like sunrays caressing with tiptoes the Earth, the grass, the flowers; 2. with the step forward that your arms are like the Earth striving to reach the Sun and remaining in its orbit.
6. Affirmation: Write your own positive affirmation for Joy of the Earth. For example: The fruits of my efforts give me joy.
7. Quotes: It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness (Charles H.Spurgeon) Find your own favourite quote on the Joy of the Earth.
TEXT
Conquering is also victory. The exercise is about solving our tasks and overcoming, conquering our problems and difficulties. We achieve victory and become masters of the situation.
Exercises 17-21 are related thematically as a group. In 17.Square we have a problem situation, a task. With 18.Beauty and 19.Agility we work to solve it using the hard and the mild approach. In 20.Conquering we solve and overcome it. With 21.The Joy of the Earth we perform the joy for the achieved.
“Both arms move forwards and upwards as if pushing the air. This represents taking possession of everything which has been attained, mastery of that which we have achieved.” [Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, p.80]
1.Text: Finish up the sentence with your own words: “Victory is…”, “I can conquer…”
2.Drawing: Draw a picture of the victorious person.Draw an illustration to the exercise.
3.Questions: How do people who win and successfully overcome difficulties in life, look like and act?
4.Experience:Tell us of situations and experiences when you have solved a task in your life successfully, when you have overcome some difficulty. What is the feeling?
5.Imagination: Imagine while you play the exercise that you push forward the whole Earth in front of you with your hands.
6.Affirmation: Write your own positive affirmation for Conquering. For example: I can overcome any difficulty.
7.Quote: He conquers who conquers himself (Latin proverb).The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph (Thoimas Paine). Find your favourite quote for Conquering.
MUSIC
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Measure 3/8
Tonality: E minor
Total: 128 measures, 1 measure = 1 movemеnt
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MOVEMENT
FP for the exercise: same as SP but palms forwards. After the exercise is over the arms go by the sides of the body. Correct performance would bring the partners back to their initial positions on the circle (from the beginning of the exercise)!
IN PLACE cycle
FORWARDS CYCLE
SP = SP for the exercise.
The left foot moves next to the right one (in the new direction).The body finishes with the quarter turn to the left (90°). MUSIC
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Measure: 3/4 |
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MOVEMENT
MUSIC
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Measure: 3/4 |
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MOVEMENT
TEXT
Agility relates to the ability to solve our task as set in exercise 17 “Square” using the “female” approach. We perform softness, tenderness, gentleness, mildness, tact, care, flexibility. We try to be diplomatic, agile, in the language of gesture we look from all perspectives, turn in all directions, arms and hands make undulating movements, fold and touch. Some examples of the soft and flexible approach:
- water, magnetism in nature;
- using mild, kind words;
- in relationships showing mildness, tactfulness;
- approaching an issue by getting around before you reach to the point.
“This exercise begins with fluid movements of the arms and legs, first facing the centre of the circle and then turning with your back to the centre. This exercise is a continuation to the previous one – soft, curved lines are at work. The feminine principle that processes the square is at work here. This is magnetism.” [Beinsa Douno, Paneurhythmy, p.80]
QUESTIONS
1. Text: What are the imahes of agility in the text? Write in your own beautiful words a sentence/ essay/ poem about softness, mildness, flexibility.
2. Drawing: Draw an illustration how you/an animal/a plant overcomes an obstacle on the way (a high wall, water etc.) by going around it. Draw and illustration of the exercise.
3. Questions: How would you describe the traditional “female” approach? What are the “female” and "male" qualities in everyone? What can water achieve with its softness and flexibility?
4. Experience: Tell us of situations and experiences when you have solved a situation by being mild and flexible. What is the feeling?
5. Imagination: Imagine while you play the exercise that you are like a butterfly that can fly over all obstacles on the way.
6. Affirmations: Write your own positive affirmation for Agility. For example: I can be mild and flexible.
7. Quotes: Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it (Lao Tzu). Find your own favourite quote for Agility.
