UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #609
H'DOUBLER, MARGARET

H'DOUBLER, Margaret (1889-1982)
Professor of Physical Education and Dance
At UW: 1906-1910; 1910-1916; 1917-1954

First Interview
Interviewed: 1972	
Interviewer: Mary Alice Brennan
Length: 1.5 hours

Second Interview
Interviewed: 1975	
Interviewer: Carl Gutknecht
Length: 0.75 hour

First Interview Session (1972)
Tape 1, Side 1
00:00:00	Start of Interview
MB:	This is an interview with Margaret H’Doubler, Professor Emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  This interview is being held at Miss H’Doubler’s home in Sister Bay, Wisconsin.  Today’s date is Sunday, October 8th, 1972.  My name is Mary Alice Brennan, and I’m on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  This interview is being recorded to form part of the oral history archives of the dance division of the American Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
00:00:32
MB:	Miss H’Doubler, in a career that has spanned some 60 years, you probably have had the most influence in establishing the value of dance and education.  Can you tell me how and where it all began?
MH:	Yes (laughing).   It began when Miss Trilling came to head our Department in – I don’t remember if it was 1908 – or, anyway, around – I was a senior at the University.
MB:	This is at Madison.
MH:	This is at Madison, the University of Wisconsin, yes.  And it was the – it was the last semester of my senior year and Lathrop Hall was finished.  And when Miss Trilling came to follow Ms. Mayhew, she had brought in dance to the department and she had her little, conventional black, pleated skirt and had the – well, I guess the college students were also free to take it in the majors and I saw them at work, but I never had any dancing, and it was her idea, when she came – oh, by the way, I better start back a little bit and say that when I was at the University, Miss Mayhew was the head of the department, and what little space was used for the physical education department was part of old Chadbourne Hall, but when I entered as a freshman, I had my first class in physical education and I just loved it.  We had runs and dumbbells and music.
00:02:03
 	I came from a small town and had never seen a gymnasium and I was very excited about it and when I went home, I said, “I know what I want to do.  I want to be – I want to go into physical education,” and there weren’t any courses in the University that you could get a major at that time, but there was the Sargent School in Boston and Miss Homans had a school at Wellesley and let’s see . . . what else was there?  But it was very much in the thinking stage – but, anyway, I loved the activity and I took every possible activity course that I could, and when I decided this, fortunately, I had a course that laid the foundation for it, because I was biology major and a philosophy minor and really, you will see, and as I have realized more and more, how much it was the biology that gave me this point of view.  Well, anyway, I could hardly stand it until the next day came that I could get back into that gymnasium and into class and into playing the various sports that we had.  And so it went on during the year – all four years I was very active in the program, and this was in Lathrop Hall – I mean, in Chadbourne Hall.  
00:03:17
	Then Lathrop Hall was being built, and it was finished, so that all the work was brought over to Lathrop Hall, my second semester of my senior year.  And one day, I was going to the gymnasium, and here was Dr. Denniston teaching a group of students in dance.  Oh, but then it was called – I don’t know if she called it the Gilbert dance or the Sellers dance.   And it seemed so ridiculous because the feud was between these two leaders in dance at that time.  One said that the knee must be extended; the other said that you must flex it, with the knee, you must dance with a flexed knee (laughing).  Well, anyway, but it looked like fun and I went in oh, maybe a couple of times, because this was near the end of the year, and enjoyed it, because I enjoyed the rhythm of it.  
00:04:07
	Well, Miss Trilling followed Miss Mayhew, who was the head of the department when I was there because Miss Mayhew was asked to go to China and establish a physical education course for the Chinese women in the YWCA.  Then Miss Trilling followed her, and Miss Trilling’s idea was to, at the end of each year, for the faculty to entertain the student body.  Well, one time – oh, yes, and then when she came, she took over and foot dancing was taught and it was the question of the five positions, and the little, black, pleated skirt, and the conventional thing at the time.
MB:	This was mainly ballet, now?
MH:	Well, it was – yes, oh yes, ballet, yes, but a very mild form of it.  Um, and there wasn’t time to develop anything, but I think it was the five positions.  I didn’t pay much attention to that, but – well, the program – it was kind of a “frolic” I think it was called, but, anyway, the department went to entertain the students, and Miss Trilling had a great interest in that, but she wasn’t at all satisfied with what was being done and what she was doing.  But this time, for some reason, she asked me to team up with her and do a dance.  Well, I enjoyed it, and I thought afterwards, she had kind of a – I thought, “She can dance,” and pretty soon, after I stayed, and it was after I graduated, I was asked to stay in the department and help develop sports.  
00:05:36
	Now, have I said to you about the course of study that I took – my biology and I was a major in that a philosophy minor?  Because this is very important to me, in my way of thinking later on.  Well, after about five years of teaching and working hard in sports and basketball was my love – it was my passion.  And I almost had every girl in the University playing basketball, and there was so much interest that they even had to have invitations given out to the townspeople because they couldn’t take care of the crowds.  I mean, there was interest in it.  It was really great.   And such a kind of joyous time, and the spirit was so wonderful, and I remember must have been the senior year, the seniors didn’t have quite enough to carry on the competition – we had those games, you know?  I can’t remember what you call them now.
MB:	Intramural?
MH:	Intramural, yes, of course.  Yes, and it was, especially with the underclass teams, I remember this very clearly, the seniors didn’t have enough to come out to play that night, so they just borrowed from the other team.   I mean, there was just that joy in the game. 
00:06:43	
	 Well, I wanted to go out and know more about physical education, and so the only place to go was at Harvard Summer School and at Sargent School of Physical Education, you’ve probably heard of that in your readings.  So, but I was going to go, not so much for that, as I wanted also to – no, I went to go to Columbia for my philosophy – that’s what – I wasn’t going to Sargents.  Yes, I did go there one summer school.  I had forgotten all about that, but I must tell you, I just was so disappointed; so disillusioned.  It was just a dreadful course.  Why, there wasn’t any value.  You just had to learn a little step and you had to learn your bone names and anatomy and nothing significant about the skeletal structure for movement or anything like that – nothing.  I just didn’t think – “I can’t take this.  Something’s got to happen to hold me in this field.”  But, I had so much interest in the philosophical side, so I was taking – and then I went to Columbia and that was a wonderful experience because of the philosophers there at the time, and got very interested – oh, yes.  
00:07:53
	I was asked to be a – oh, I guess, a graduate member of the Education -- Philosophical Club, and so I got a chance to be in on all kinds of discussions on education and their points of view, and it was (inaudible) –
MB:	So this was at Columbia?
MH:	At Columbia, um-hmm. And I got terribly excited about just what the human mind, what the human being really is, and our values, and it got me very stimulated, and I got very interested in doing some reading on my own, and I went down – oh yes, and I got very interested in drama, in theater.  And I had access, then, to Matthew’s Library and I read there, and I read Albert – it was Albert Reid’s – the important part that dance had in all these civilizations, the older civilizations, and I kept reading.  You know how, when you’re reading and you find footnotes to go follow up?
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	Well, I commenced  -- but really, I had a bibliography of books about this long, and I would run down to the 22nd Street Library after I would be teaching or studying, and read and get books and come back, and sometimes it was 10:00 at night in New York.  Can you imagine that? All alone?  And then – but I got very interested in this thing, and realizing more and more the part that man had played in the various cultures.  And then from there, I commenced to build up, and tried to see what could be done in our civilization.  And I was taking many courses and I had – I was going to five different ballet studios at the same time and – oh, and this was in 1917, I think.
00:09:50
MB:	Now, you had taken some time off from your teaching?  Is that right?  You had been teaching –
MH:	I took a leave of absence, yes, yes.  I guess I didn’t make that clear, and then the fact that I was going to go to New York to study, Miss Trilling called me in and said, “Marge, while you’re in New York, I wish you would look into dancing, and maybe you can come back and teach dance.”  And I was horrified.  I said, “Miss Trilling, I teach dance and give up my basketball?” Oh, and tears came in my eyes (laughing) and I said, “I just couldn’t think of that.  I don’t know anything about that,” and she said, “well, if you get as many girls dancing as you’ve been putting in basketball, I don’t think you can care . . .”  And I said, “Miss Trilling, I just can’t think now of ever giving up basketball.”  But she said, “Alright.  You can keep your basketball.”  
00:10:38
	Well, then I left early in the summer, I guess it was practically after school was over here, and went to New York so I could commence to look around to see what was going on in dance before the University opened.  And I went here and there and oh, so disappointed . . . so, so disappointed.  And the ballet that I took --  I thought it was very bad . . . very bad indeed, and you just were there, and you were just one of a number and you would just do that and imitate them and I just kept writing back to Miss Trilling, “I just can’t find anything that I think you would want me to teach and that I care to teach,” and then she would hear different people (inaudible).  
00:11:16
	And by the way, this, I think, was ’17, and you remember, that was – no, you’re too young, but it was the First World War, and there was such a revolt in the arts.  It was a very interesting time to be in New York, because the theater was changing its ways, and music was being changed – everything that just seemed to be such a turnover and dance was changing.  There was a revolt in all the arts, and it was very interesting to be there at that time.  And whenever I would hear somebody that was teaching, I would go and try to get in the class to see and there were some who had broken from the ballet, and I would talk with them and they would say, “I don’t know where I am going.  I don’t know what this is all about, but I just know that I don’t want ballet.”  And then I found out that those people, although they didn’t have the same ballet technique, they had as rigid movements and taught as rigidly as the ballet did.  It was the question again of imitating their movements, but they were different movements than the ballet.  And that still isn’t what I wanted.  And then I went and took Dalcroze’s, and I thought, “This is it.   This has some – some theory, some reason for it.”  But then pretty soon it was a dead end for me because it was really music movement – movement from music.
MB:	That was his main purpose, wasn’t it?
MH:	Yes, that was his main purpose, and they were true to what they were doing, but it didn’t – it needed – but then -- I mean, how did I know what dance was at the time myself?  I didn’t. 
MB:	Um-hmm.
00:12:54
MH:	I just didn’t.  Well, you can imagine how busy I was doing all of that, and running down to the library and reading books and carrying classes at Columbia and teaching, and pretty soon what little hair -- now I’m getting personal about some personal amusement – things that happened to me – what hair I had, started to come out.  And I didn’t have much hair, and when I got to the age of having to put up my hair, I had to get a switch and wear a switch and I was so self conscious about that switch, that whoever I’d meet in the ballet I’d say, “you know, this isn’t my own hair,” and I thought, “oh, if only I had short hair.”  Now, this is going to – this is so bad, but it came out -- it’s very interesting what happened, but my hair commenced to come out, and I went to see about it, and I was told that if I wanted to save what hair I had, I better have it cut, and I thought, “My goodness, short hair . . .  dance . . .  New York.  Just one thought:  ruined woman.”
MB:	Of course.
00:13:56
MH:	I thought, “I didn’t know what to do,” but I must say this:  oh, yes, this is too soon to bring Miss Bentley in.  Well, and so it went on, and I kept writing back Miss Trilling:  “I just am not getting anywhere, and I’m so sorry, and so disappointed, and I’m sure you will be disappointed,” and then she would hear from different ones that had gone to this studio, but finally I got a letter from her saying that she had heard of a Miss Bentley, Alys Bentley, and that does not teach dance, but she’s a music teacher, in music movement, and she was teaching in Carnegie Hall.  You know, Carnegie Hall?  And I went to see her and she was very, very interested in my problem.  And she said she didn’t take students if she didn’t want to.  Oh, I must say at this point, what she did – her main center and her biggest work was with children, and she was simply marvelous with them.  She did not teach them songs or melodies; she had them create their own.   She was a highly creative person; the first one that I had contacted.   Well, she said, “yes.  I’ll recruit you and I’ll put you in a class.”  She had a group of about seven girls who had been with her for years, and they were beautiful – beautiful movement, but they didn’t know anything about movement, was the interesting thing.  But this is what I owe to Miss Bentley:  she said, “I’ll take you in.”  She said, “You just do what she’s – what she’s – the movement that she’s doing.”  
00:15:28
	But the thing is, that she had us begin by lying on the floor.  Well, that’s really the whole thing.  I mean, just like that, I thought, “of course.  Get on the floor where we are relieved from the pull of gravity – no balance, where the body’s (inaudible) anatomy and all these things before I went to her.  And where you could work out and see what the structural response to change of position and movement.   Well, it was like a quick class that day, and I got so excited and I went to her and told her what I had gotten out of her work, and she said, “well you stay here in New York and develop that.  You’re never going to accomplish anything in education in a college.  That’s the last place you need to go.”  And I said, “I don’t want studio work.  I want to teach.”   But she let me go on and I have never heard (inaudible) or anything like that.  “Just do as you please.”  But she freed us by getting down.   I could see it right away and right away and I thought, “well, yes.  Get a technique worked out that is based on the body structure.  The structural response is first, and know the body technique, then you can have the knowledge of how to develop your own style.”
MB:	Did she have you do this?  Were you able to find –
MH:	Oh, (inaudible) just a few weeks before I had to come  home, but I talked to her about it.  I got so excited, but she didn’t know what I was talking about, and she wanted me to stay there and work it out.  Well, I don’t believe I was with her more than a month, just working once a week, or maybe twice a week, I can’t remember.  But, anyway, you see, you can appreciate that, can’t you?
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	And then I got excited.  Well, I went back to teaching.  I had no materials or anything, and the – oh, now I must back up and tell you something else, because it’s amusing later on.   
00:17:27
	While I was in New York, my brother was in Boston. He lived out there and was studying at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, so I was going down to see him, and I thought, “I’ll go see Dr. Sargent and Carl Schrader.”  They were the two outstanding people at the Sargent School of Physical Education – delightful men.  Oh yes, I used to talk to people around and I kept running across people like myself who were starting to find out, that were studying dance, and I would talk to them about this and they just thought I was crazy, really, and I thought, “well, I’ll talk to Dr. Schrader and Sargent while I’m in Boston.”  They didn’t have the slightest idea what I was talking about, and Miss Homans was at Wellesley and such a fine person.  She was really a great woman, a very interesting woman, and a very cultured woman, and she was head of the Boston Normal School of Physical Education and then went to Wellesley.  I’m not so sure of where she was before she was at Wellesley, but she was one outstanding person. She was such a cultured person herself, and she was very much interested in finding kinds of dance steps of which she would approve and I thought, and Miss Trilling was from there, and I thought, “Well, I’m going and see Miss Homans.  She’ll know what I’m talking about,” because the way I had heard of her, I just thought she must be tough.  And I went to see her and I was excused and in the hall in about five minutes.  And, I mean, (inaudible).  It was the smoothest dismissal.  I was just out in the hall.  And, ah, well, that was alright, and, anyway, I kept working.  At the time, I couldn’t  --  I had to go back.  
00:19:27
	So when I came back from Boston, I went by a barbershop and I shot in there, got a whiskey, drove to New York and got my hair cut, and they weren’t cutting hair then.  But Miss Bentley had short hair.  She was an older woman.  She was about 60, and I thought, “Oh, you’re fortunate.  How lucky to have your hair.”  She had a beautiful head of hair, except her hair was curly, but, anyway, it was not being done.  I had to go to a man’s barbershop.  I didn’t know where to go, and from there on end, every night I had to go get – there weren’t  bobby pins -- and do my hair up every night so nobody knew my hair was cut.  
00:20:04
	And then, finally came the time I had to go home, back to Madison, but I was looking forward to it, except for this one thing.
MB:	And you had been in New York, now, a year?
MH:	Yes, a year.  Well, not quite, because the summer, I was back in the summer, that’s right, but about a year.  And I was to come back to summer school, and all the people in Physical Education were curious; oh, that were interested in that, and it was a wonderful group.  Um, were interested in that and just waiting to see what I was going to bring back, and they all came to Madison for summer school.  Well, the first thing I did, was I went to Miss Trilling, and I told her about my hair being short, and she said, “My Lord, Marge!  Do you know what will happen?  The students will all cut their hair and I won’t be able to place them because they’ll be considered mannish,” and I said, “Oh, Miss Trilling, if that should happen, I’ll resign.  You won’t even have to ask me,” and she started saying, “then you’d just have to leave.”   And then I went down, and reported to the Dean of Women, and do you know what her reaction was?  She said, “How I envy you.”  (laughing)  Wasn’t that – and that was a delightful reception.  Well, the students didn’t know for a long, long while at the time that I had short hair, because I wore a net over it and all
00:21:23	
	Well, it was the end of summer school, and it was just a miracle what happened.  In those short, six weeks, these people not exposed to it – I didn’t even know – what I didn’t have the experience myself of what I thought could be done.  And, why, a marvelous program was created that first year.
MB:	Is this a dance class?
MH:	Yes.   It had been the people that came for dance in summer school and put on a program and it was really a lovely experience for all of us.
00:21:56
	And then came the fall, and I can’t remember whether the students could elect – in those days -- that would be ’19, I guess it would be.  The students that came were from small towns, and they had never even seen dance, let alone having had any, except those who probably had been from the city had ballet, but -- and they didn’t know what dance was, and I don’t remember whether they had to take it or sign up for it.  But, anyway, there were some people who had signed, and I sat and practiced, and, at that time, the practices were held in the old green gym which was the (inaudible) theater on campus and there (inaudible) so there were many supporting (inaudible), you see, and I started teaching and I, again, hadn’t had much experience, you see,  and they stood behind pillars, so it was pretty strange, but pretty soon, they’d commence to (inaudible) and things would run beautifully and one day I was going up the hill to the main hall and an  English professor stopped me and he said, “Marge, what in the world are you doing to the students?  We can’t get things written on anything but dance.”  Well, they returned their enthusiasm over in their themes and they were having discussions in various classes.  And I said, “This is interesting, and I don’t know, but I do think that we’re on our way to something.”  
00:23:25
	Well, then it went on, and the enthusiasm grew, and then students came, and asked if they couldn’t have an extra class.  And I said, “Oh, my goodness, yes!  How wonderful, and you can decide on what night, it will have to be at night, that you can come.”  Well, they decided on Wednesday nights, and so we were – and always they were there.  And, you know what?  Many nights we would have different Professors that would like to come down to watch us work and talk to them themselves.  Max Otto just happened to be there the first year, and he was – he gave me so much encouragement.  It was so in keeping with the Gestalt theory.
MB:	Did he come to see the classes?
MH:	Oh, yes, and the interesting thing was, that with Orchesis, sometimes we’d have four or five different set of them, and there’d be philosophers and scientists were there, and fortunately, I could ask them – and the students could, too.  They’d come on the floor and they’d ask them questions.  It was like little seminars.
00:24:28
MB:	Do you remember some of the things that you were doing?  Were you experimenting now with –
MH:	Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  I was just experimenting, and growing, and giving back to the students what – and they gave so much to me, and – oh, I don’t know – it was a terribly exciting thing.  I knew my anatomy, and I knew movement and that’s something – I wasn’t so (inaudible) but I really liked (inaudible) on the nervous system.  I could hardly get enough,  and I discovered for myself the feedback and that they had (inaudible) and had emotions (inaudible).
MB:	And then you tried to use this?
MH:	Yes, and then I checked it, though, of course, and Professor Hellebrand, she was there, and she got interested.
MB:	She was in physiology?
MH:	Yes, um-hmm.  I went to her, because I was just so excited about it, and she, herself, hadn’t realized that there was that connection between the (inaudible) and the cerebral cortex.
MB:	And you were working at this point with trying to build an awareness?
MH:	Yes, yes, yes.
MB:	Of what the body could do and find out naturally what it could do.
MH:	What it could do, and then, you see, they were working with themselves entirely and getting the quality from their own movement, and they seemed to find out that they were the recipients of their own movement and responsible for their responses.  That didn’t all happen at once, remember.
MB:	Yeah.
00:25:51
MH:	But it grew and grew and grew, and then, my goodness, we commenced to get invitations to come to other campuses and I went to ask the president about it, and he – up to that time, no women had ever been permitted off of campus to represent the University; only the men in the Glee Club, and, my goodness, we got permission.  And so the schools, the Universities that had asked us to come had to write, and ask that it be under the auspices of the Dean of Women, and that it would be understood that it would be a highly creative presentation.  The students would in no way know what they were going to do, (inaudible) and show it off.  So they never knew what they were going to do and everywhere it was so successful and so much interest and such delightful times.  And finally, we had to stop, because the chancellor said he didn’t want Wisconsin known as a dancing school (laughing).  And that was alright, because it was getting kind of hard to go three or four times on these trips, but we had lovely times and they were great experiences.  And then that went on for several years – well, not for several years off and doing demonstrations, but perhaps maybe two or three years, I don’t remember.  
00:27:21
	And then pretty soon, came a request for teachers.  Well, we had nothing like that – some of the older – we had such a beautiful quality of students.  They were very talented, very interested in the theater, and all of that, and smart, very intelligent, so they could do something, I’m sure that they could, but we had no dance major.
MB:	These were students that came from other agencies –
MH:	Yes, ah-huh.
MB:	Interested in taking classes.
MH:	Ah-huh.  And most of them were in theater.  
00:27:58	End of Tape 1, Side 1.
Tape 1, Side 2
00:28:00
MH:	You see, the trouble is, I’m jumping around so.  Yes, Wednesday night, and about the second year, this may have happened in the first year, they came to me, and oh, they were so loyal, and that first year, we had a program that the students gave.  Well now, then, they were going around and all, but I was first year teaching.  A program commenced to evolve, and we did give a program in the spring of that first year.  Well, as we worked and all these people were coming down from the hill and there would be discussions, I think the students commenced to feel themselves as having kind of a unique, something they couldn’t define, experience.  And they wanted a name for the Wednesday night class, and I said, “well, if that’s what you want, of course.  You think of a name, and I’ll think of a name, and next meeting, we’ll all present what we think would be a good name for a dance club.”  Well, I had the name Orchesis, and the reason I did that is because in my readings, I ran across that word, and I believe that the Greek translation, means, “the science of human motion.” That’s the basis of that, and I thought, “wouldn’t that be a lovely name for a dance group?”  And, remember, there hadn’t been such things in any college, whether that would ever happen, but here it was.  But they chose that. They liked it.  That’s how Orchesis became Orchesis.  Um, and then later on, they came and said they would like a pin, and I said, “well, if that pin means that it speaks to something that’s very close and very meaningful to you, you have it,” and I can’t remember if they ever – I don’t think they ever did.   Then later, even after I retired, they tried to have a pin, but I don’t know if things have changed.  Well, anyway, that’s how Orchesis got started, and it was from that group that the program evolved; their own creation.  
00:30:06
	And during this year, when we had to stop and not go and accept invitations any more, by then the people came to Madison and did observe a class, and so, and we never knew when they were going to come, and you know what those girls said?  Because the only time the studio would be free would be at noon, and they said, “Miss H’Doubler, if you know that somebody comes that wants to see us work, put it on the bulletin board, and we will go to Lathrop Hall every day and if a demonstration is to be given, we’ll be there.”  They never missed a one.  They were there.  And they’d give a demonstration, and finally Miss Homans came and she had taken the whole year to go around at every University and college that had dance, to observe it because she was very anxious to get a quality dance program at Wellesley.  And finally, she was coming to see what we were doing at Wisconsin and so we gave her like a demonstration and when it was over, she called the girls to come over and sit on the floor.  And she really was a lovely person, and maybe your grandmother had one of those row chains with a slider that went like this, and when she talked, she would slide this, with a glider, up and down and she said, “young ladies, I am not accustomed to flatter young ladies, but I do want to tell you this is the most beautiful dancing I have seen.” 
MB:	Well, this is the lady who –
MH:	Yes, yes, dismissed me, yes.  Now, then, I have to back up, and it was a story that ended very well.  
00:32:01
	Miss Trilling, I don’t believe came to visit a class more than three times, and she never stayed until the class was over.  We were always on the floor when she came and we were still on the floor when she left (laughing) and she never saw the class develop.  And just the night before we were having dress rehearsals, she called me in her office and she said, “Marge, I’m very sorry.  This isn’t what I had hoped for,” and I said, “Oh, Miss Trilling, wait until you see the program, and then if it isn’t what you want, again I’ll say I’ll retire, and you won’t have to be embarrassed,” and so we did the program, and we had to do it twice.  And, oh, there were things connected with that:  all the costumes to be designed, yet made, but we all loved it and I had – laid out all the great tables up there and the janitors were all in back of me.  Oh, we had a marvelous time amongst ourselves up there on the fifth floor.  And, well, anyway, and then we had to get the – that old stadium – we had to get the seats, because that outdoor theater hadn’t been used since I don’t know when.  And the men at the service station were just marvelous.  That wasn’t the day of trucks; it was a day of horses, and had to go out in the woods and cut bows so that we’d have signs for entrances and exits.  Everybody was just beaming with excitement and we got all set up and we gave our program and there was this enthusiastic crowd there and we had to do it twice and after it was all over, I could just see Miss Trilling just coming down like this, just pushing people aside.  She couldn’t get there fast enough.  She said, “Marge, it’s beautiful.  I shall never say another word.  I’ll do all I can to help you go ahead.”  And I thought still there was something funny about this.  
00:33:47
	Well, then when Miss Homans came and she was so pleased and then that evening, Mr. Lee made dinner for her and there were some friends from the University faculty as guests also.   Miss Homans then got up and she said, “I must make a statement. “  She said, “when Miss H’Doubler came to see me,” she said, “I just  . . . “  I can’t remember what she said, but it was just saying that I was far out.  I can’t remember just how she phrased it.  Well, and she had written to Miss Trilling to look out for me.
MB:	This was after you had first gone to talk to her and she dismissed you?”
MH:	Yes, ah-huh.  And she had written to Miss Trilling that I was – I don’t know how she said it, but, anyway, you’d think I was demented or something.  And so that was what was the problem . . . Miss Trilling took her word and didn’t come and see what those children were doing.  Well, anyway, she got up and so she said, “I must tell you that I have traveled the United States over and this is the loveliest dance that I have seen, and I consider it the biggest educational form of dance, and I must say that when Miss H’Doubler came to see me, I was . . . “   I don’t know how she – I can’t remember how she said it, but she confessed that she wasn’t interested in what I had to say.  But I thought that was very fine of her.
00:35:16
MB:	Were there any other people who were doing anything like you, what you were doing?
MH:	No.
MB:	Everybody was doing just ballet, or --
MH:	No.  They were all ballets.  But – I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Nem Verdinarsian(?)
MB:	Yes.
MH:	Well, she, I think, would have gone someplace if she had not had such an early death.  She said, “Marge, I don’t know where I’m going, but I want to teach.”  It was more she was controlling what the students were doing, rather than – but it was freer than anything that I had seen.
MB:	Was this in New York?
MH:	Yes, she was in New York, and she taught at the (inaudible) in the Bowery or someplace like that.  I just saw her teach.  And then she went abroad and then she was taken ill or died very recently, and a very attractive person and one that I’m sure would have found her way, because she was seeking, too.  (tape stops and starts) She was very convinced of the value and she believed in it very much.
MB:	This is Miss Trilling?
MH:	Miss Trilling, and (inaudible) what the students could do and it was just what she wanted.  Wasn’t that nice?  But, ah, (inaudible) Miss Homans.  But you can imagine how far back this was.  Let’s see . . . what else?  Oh –
00:36:28
MB:	Now, you wrote a book in 1925.
MH:	Oh, yes, ah-huh.
MB:	Called the Place of Dance in Education?
MH:	And I wrote a funny kind of a little – another one, kind of a manual of movement before that, and then I wrote Rhythmic Form and Analysis twice and next is Dance and Education.
00:36:51
MB:	And that was in ’25.  Now, was that your first dance major?
MH:	Now, that I wouldn’t have – isn’t that in 1923?
MB:	The dance major started right after – before Miss  Trilling and Miss Homans, was that after that?
MH:	After that, oh, yes, um-hmm.
MB:	And was this something that she encouraged, or had you come to the point where you –
MH:	Oh, that’s right.  I haven’t told you this, have I?  How this happened?
MB:	Mm-mm, no.
MH:	Well, I’m glad you’re there monitoring me.  Ah, then, pretty soon, we commenced to get request for teachers in dance, and I went to Miss Trilling, oh so excited about it, and she said, her statement was always, “My God, Marge.  Can you see this faculty, this University, and we’re consenting to a dance major course?”  It was like it was the end of the world.  And I said, “No, Miss Trilling, I can’t.  But let me make out a course of study and I’ll present it.  And they will refuse me the first year, and then I will present it the second year, and I’ll be refused, and the third year, they’ll accept it to get rid of me.”  And she said, “Alright, go ahead,” and so, do you know that Dean Sellery, who was the Dean, oh, Weatherby, and at that time, the whole faculty were at the classes, you know, but, now, this is the point . . . well, I’ll wait for the point.  It would be better later on. And so he wanted to help me, and he did, but that was after the course of study – it was all based on science philosophy and it was a beautiful course.  It was one of the richest courses on the University.  And he helped me in knowing how to number, so if you ever wanted to change, you wouldn’t have to go through a lot of –
MB:	Red tape.
MH:	Red tape and all that was connected with that.  Oh, he was just a darling.  And, so that’s what we did and I presented it to the School of Education and they passed it unanimously the first time.  Then it was taken up to L & S and they passed it unanimously.  Do you know why?  The students.  You see, the members – the faculty who had the students -- and it was the care that gave the program that the students put on.  I didn’t have to – the students did it.  That is why they are the ones that gave it this  reality.  
MB:	So many people at the University already knew this because the students were –
MH:	Yes.
MB:	Comments in classes and writing themes about it.
MH:	Yes, yes, and discussing it and the people coming down and watching us work.  Why, there was no problem.
MB:	Do you remember what the first class, then, for these students that you had been teaching with these students switching to the dance major -- 
MH:	No, I can’t remember that.  I just know that the students took as much as they could.  I mean, I never dreamed of how well it was going to go.  I mean, I believed in it, from the beginning, I believed in what I hoped I was doing.
MB:	Did you always have, or was there usually a performance involved at the end of the year?
MH:	Yes, it just grew naturally.
MB:	And this is from the Orchesis group.
MH:	Yes, from the Orchesis group, mm-hmm.
00:39:55
MB:	Can you go back and, um, say a little bit about some of the philosophy and theory that you were talking about earlier?  How did your philosophy – you said that you had gone to the different philosophers and read them while you were in New York and realized that there was a value in perhaps something that you hadn’t found – 
MH:	Well, the thing that got me, that I got from that was getting a philosophical attitude toward it, not any “a” philosophy.  And the philosophy that I got was from my own.  You see, I was a botany major, and a zoology major.  I was a biology major, let me put it that way, and that is the thing that gave me my background.  Because you just can’t stay up night after night and making the little shows of gradual development and not realize the forces that went into making a life.  That’s where I got my philosophy.
MB:	Um-hmm.  You say something about your philosophy of education, because this is how the dance is important.
MH:	Well, my philosophy of education –
MB:	You were saying “what is education?” or “what would education be  . . . “
MH:	Education was for me an experience which lead me to knowledge of myself.  
MB:	And this, you found, that dance could do for you and could do –
MH:	The movement, the movement.
MB:	The movement could do for you.
MH:	That movement could do, and then movement as a meaning of dance for the creative arts side.
MB:	And this is what you began to believe could develop –
MH:	Yes, yes, yes.
MB:	Rather than an imitative kind of dance.
MH:	Yes, that’s right, that’s right.
MB:	How did the art aspect, then – how did you build this into the idea of the arts as a –
MH:	Well, the art aspect comes from the terrific impulse that wants to communicate and, that is, to sing a song beautiful, or – like, no matter what you want to do, whether it’s an idea, or getting impressed with a beautiful sunset or any of those things that give you a sensation that lifts you out of yourself, you want to give it a form of expression.  It is that instinct, to communicate and express.
MB:	And this is what you felt dance –
MH:	And there wasn’t anybody that would teach me that.
MB:	That movement is the median to do this.
MH:	Yes, yes.  And the interesting thing is that movement is – it not only brings dance into existence, but it brings musical composition into existence; it brings painting into existence; it brings in -- all art forms is accomplished through movement.  And, you see, in dance, movement has a double raised edge, that not only is it a medium, but it is a conveyor of thought and feeling, and there comes in the knowledge of tension and rhythm as both a stimulating and controlling force which makes a movement dance, you see? That is when – dance is merely taking movement over into the realm of aesthetic experience and giving it form to communicate that aesthetic experience.  It is really a form in movement that gives a visible form to an invisible emotional aesthetic state.
MB:	Can you expand on the rhythm again?  Because it’s all –
MH:	Yes!  That’s my pet.
MB:	That’s right, that it is.
MH:	Ah-huh.  Well, again, my biology and physiology taught me that – well, it wasn’t taught, but observed, that rhythm is a law of neuro-muscle action.  It is the only form that it can take place, that movement can take place, in terms of relation and force, or tension.  And there is a beginning and an end, and we find that in our biological nature and physiology of the neuromuscular response.  It’s born in life.  It is there, and it is a disciplining form, and it is both a discipline and a stimulating force.  And you know what?  I’d like to think of rhythm as the mold to which the creative art shows a living form towards expression.  That’s where the discipline is, and it’s an objective thing.  
MB:	Um-hmm.  Creation and force to work with as material to develop –
MH:	And the vocabulary of movement, whether it’s basketball or just you and I walking around here, or sweeping the floor, or running to catch the bus, they all implore exactly the same vocabulary movement:  it’s infliction, extension, rotation, abduction, abduction, circumduction – is there anything else?  Oh, gliding – it’s all the same thing.  Alright, what makes for the difference?
MB:	What?
MH:	The goal.
MB:	The goal.  And is this what makes dance dance?
MH:	Yes, dance uses exactly the same step; the same neuromuscular mechanism.
00:44:44
MB:	But the goals are different.
MH:	But the goals are different.  And in dance, the goal – in dance, there is an objective/subjective relationship to movement.  There is movement of the body instrument.
MB:	And this is the objective.
MH:	That is the objective. And, you see, movement does not need the mind for its existence, but it does need the mind to understand it.  And so there’s this objective/subjective in learning about movement, you are learning about the objective aspect, the skeletal structure, the joint action, the range of movement and the direction it can take and then you put – but it’s an inanimate structure, but we’ve got to know the laws of that structure, what it can do to the joint mechanism, and then an understanding of the levers, how to use them for space and speed and so forth -- all the things that go within our study of that.  Alright, it doesn’t care whether the mind knows it or not.  It just has existed, and there is this instinctive neuromuscular mechanism that’s set up with patterns of behavior by which we survive.  But look at the people on the street.  How many of them have wanted to learn about movements and physiology and all that.  There is this service of survival.
MB:	That we all have.
MH:	That we all have.
MB:	That comes naturally.
MH:	That come naturally, and in this survival, we are associated with feelings and actions that cause a great deal of feelings and emotional reactions and emotions are connected with them.  Well, so we can commit to realize that it is through the force with which we move and the duration of (inaudible) that gives us, through our feedback, a feeling out of having so moved, you see.  Now, that is the objective phase.  But now the mind – we don’t have to be intelligent or to be smart or anything, that we can move like that.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	But not only does movement cause changes in the body itself, not in position and in space, but also it affects a change on a learner, the mental change that goes on because of the feedback.  That’s where it comes in on full to your receptors.  When movement takes place – there is a record made on the appropriate receptors, like it’s a little cable – a little dot springs up, and then once it is perceived, then there is mental activity that is started off.  Now, in learning about movement, we would pull our tension to the body object out here, but we know this other’s going on that’s not getting tension, so then we can ultimately realize, “oh, I like that movement,” or “it reminded me of a feeling or reaction, or sensation I had when such and such happened.”  I mean, there’s just a score of memories that welt through, associated (inaudible) be aroused.
MB:	These are all very individual, of course.
MH:	Yes, of course.
MB:	So many different reactions to having the same objective stimulus.
MH:	That’s right, because that’s due to past experience.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	And so there’s this objective/subjective activity that goes on.  Movement, living its own life, but through our makeup it can start mental activity, so we can learn that if I take a great deal of tension and I commenced abduction there, didn’t I?  Well, then you know that so in art, you purposely do this, to know that it will make you feel like that, instead of emoting.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	It’s that discipline.  And so it is, that it’s just that by nature of the nerve response to stimulus, that is the rhythm.  You can’t have a movement without a rhythm.  There’s a beginning and an end.  There is a proportioning of time and force.   It’s as simple as that.
MB:	Would you say that certain kinds of movements may have more efficient rhythmic patterns than others?
MH:	Sure.  
MB:	In other words, a movement could have rhythm, but it may not be efficient for the purposes, which means that there might be a particular proportioning.
MH:	There is where your technical use of the objective forces come in.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	You know, you know how to draw.  Say, for example, you might want to – because you’re so trained, so sensitive, that you may want – now, I could go “ooo” or I could go “oo (quieter).”  Which one is more disciplined?
MB:	Well, the second.
MH:	The second, of course.  Because that’s near the art expression of the feeling of the other.  It’s because I know by using tension and setting the movement so it will evoke a feeling state and I’m not going to feel and then squeeze it out.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	That’s where the art comes in.  That’s the art discipline, and rhythm is the move to which both the intellect and emotion forces go through to get formed into the artistic expression.   I always like to put it like – I have trouble – rhythm is the mold to which art flows in giving expression – now I lost it . . . “rhythm is the mold to which the creative life shows in giving form to its expression,” and you create the form because you know very well if I do – say, I’m going to take – I’m going to take rotation with extension and I’m going to take it with a very abrupt attack.  I know very well how that’s going to make me feel before I do it.
MB:	Because you’ve done it before.
MH:	Because I’ve done it before, and I know the factors that make for it.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	And I call upon them.  Just like a person calls on the keys on the piano.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	You know the tone and you play it with certain force and timing.  So, you see, in basketball, you are doing the same thing, only you are parting images through an objective force that it will score or something like that and it has beautiful movement, but they’re not dance movements.  They are executed – you impart forth another object (inaudible) but the other, the exact purpose exists only to give satisfaction and communication of (inaudible); to learn quality.
00:51:06
MB:	Do you feel that this is possible or valuable for all kinds of –
MH:	Oh, yes.
MB:	It’s not just for dance artists.
MH:	Oh, absolutely not!
MB:	That’s what makes the educational –
MH:	And if dance is ever going to have its place in (inaudible), it must be brought in the schools, because the private schools aren’t even interested in the creative act.  It belongs to the people, but (inaudible) and it’s just as great an aesthetic trail and creative experience for me to do the best I can as a teacher, but they obviously have to do the best they can, because the results are different.  But I’m true to myself, just as that artist is true to him or herself.  
MB:	Do you see a difference then, at all, in the education or dance background let’s say, for the professional student and for the general student?  
MH:	I think it should be basic in any form.
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	They can go into ballet.  They can go into – you get this, and in this, every student finds her own style, but she knows it, because she has, first of all, understood the structural responses, the body’s technique.  Then, because she knows how to handle it, she knows what will happen, and out of that, she develops her own style, because she knows the factors that make (inaudible) and she can go to Graham, anybody up, and can take on their style without destroying their own.
MB:	So, you’re not – you’re working with developing each student, their own technique, their own ability to use their body in any way that they may choose.
MH:	Yes, and they’re true to themselves.  But, they can go when they want to join a professional group.  They must all be alike, but the girls who are gone from here, do not lose, I don’t think, and they all seem to say the same thing, and the other students say, “how can you get those techniques so soon, so easily?” because they know the factors that make for them.
MB:	They’re not just following –
MH:	No, they aren’t following blindly.  In fact, if anything, I bet you they contribute, because they are contributing such a killer, sound movement.
00:53:24
MB:	Um-hmm.  Do you feel the public – the performance, the ability performing in public before people, either in your classes or on a stage, has value?  Where is the value to this?
MH:	Well, yes, of course I do.  If they have something that they can communicate and express, of course.
MB:	This is the art performed being true.
MH:	Yes, oh, yes.  Because I think the art impulse comes from the necessity of communicating and expressing those deep feelings, reactions they’ve had to life experiences, and it’s got to be given in another form.  Now, it may not be the form of a skilled, experienced dancer, but it’s the person’s own, and it will have sometimes a greater value than the other.  I have seen some beginners I’d rather see work – they don’t – I mean, you can’t -- some of the beautiful things -- a lot of these things they are just doing off on the stage.  I’ve had more aesthetic experience seeing students find themselves than I have, in fact, in any ballet.  Of course, I don’t care for ballet.
MB:	You don’t?
MH:	No.
MB:	Is this a reaction from your early days?
MH:	No, I don’t think so, because I didn’t know anything about dance when I took ballet.  I just couldn’t – but, I do think that for those who like ballet, and if they had this basic thing first, they can’t be so worried about it, because it’s another style.  I look at it as a style.
MB:	A way of moving with fluidity.
MH:	Um-hmm, if they’re true to it.  And I have known and I saw – I just knew nothing but ballet, but if it’s physically done, I can get an aesthetic reaction, but once I see it, I’ve seen it, and I don’t want a whole evening of it, and I admire the – I certainly admire the way they work at it.
MB:	It’s a real discipline.
MH:	(inaudible) But, of course, a lot of it is getting self-image in relationship to a great ballerina, and all of that.
MB:	Did you find that as you’ve been teaching, that there are other educators besides the people that you were teaching directly that felt this same way? 
00:55:37	End of Tape 1, side 2 
Tape 2, Side 1
00:00:00
MB: 	-- I mean if you were teaching at the University now, um, through the years, did you find more educators at universities and colleagues of your own, did you travel to meet other people to talk about this?
MH:	Well, yes, I did -- in a way, when I was a student, but they hadn’t had the background that I had had in the sciences.  They didn’t understand this object to subject aspect at all and that makes me just wonder what we’re teaching in physical education not to know movement.  Did I tell you – I owe so much to my biological training and just understanding life forces.  Then, oh gosh, Dr. Dawson in physiology of exercise – my goodness, what I learned from him came to the front.  That was where I got the idea of what rhythm really is.  You know that isolated muscle stimulus?  You surely had that.
MB:	Was it (inaudible)?
MH:	Well, it was an isolated muscle that was put up and then there was a marker on a rotating drum with smoke paper, and then the muscle was stimulated and it made this kind of a thing?
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	Well, there’s your whole story.  He didn’t tell it to me, but I got it from him, just the same.  I had never heard the word rhythm used.  Why, you could just see it.
MB:	That this was happening all the time.
MH:	Well, movement can’t take place any other way.  You have to wait for the nerve impulses.  Now, look – look at this . . . what happened there?  Why did I go – what happens in different  – when I do that?
MB:	Oh, relaxation.
MH:	But, not the stimulus.
MB:	Um-hmm, um-hmm.
MH:	Let’s just work on it and (inaudible) so that you can study perception, and a person knows very well that – once they understand their (inaudible) and circular rotation, they can commence to create their own movement – just taking the arm in a rotation and circumduction and all that, well, look, and then you start it up as a structure and stop turning – look what happened.  Well, now I’m going to do that on purpose.  It’s a little bit different.
MB:	That’s right.  As an observer, I can see a difference.
MH:	You can!
MB:	You can feel it as a –
MH:	You can feel it –
MB:	Your own object.
MH:	Right, yes, yes of course.
MB:	Were you influenced, or do you feel you’ve influenced any of the dance artists?  The ones, the performers, particularly not necessarily educated, but –
MH:	Well, those that had danced – that had gone into professional work from here, I’m sure that there were (inaudible).  I don’t know.  You don’t know how people think.
MB:	That’s right.
00:02:41
MH:	You can’t say.  The thing that interests me is the students, and after fifty years, to hear them say how much value, how much sustaining value, it had been just in their life.  They haven’t danced.  They’ve been married and had families.  Those are the things that I like to teach forward, not for entertainment.  But, yes, my goodness, just how many who have done it, and we just loved our little whole, fun program.
MB:	Have you seen – you’ve still been teaching – you retired in 1953, or ’54?
MH:	I think ’54.
MB:	’54 from the University, but you’ve still been continuing to teach periodically at different universities.
MH:	Um-hmm, and I still love it.
MB:	You still love it.  Do you notice any change in the students?
MH:	Yes.
MB:	Can you see over the years the dance changing, or –
MH:	I don’t know that dance is changing, because dance is always the same – outside forms may be changing.
MB:	Do you think students’ attitudes towards it are changing?  Are they –
MH:	Well, I think – oh, I think there are many more students in the dance, in the rhythm, oh, yes.  Oh, when you look around, you almost think the whole world is dancing.  But it’s not rhythm – particularly care for a lot of the time.  But, anyway, it’s a dance spirit that’s going on, but it isn’t dance as a creative art experience and, of course, I’m so interested in that because of the value to self that is there.  I don’t care whether anybody sees any of the students dancing, as long as what it’s doing to them.  That is the whole focus of energy.  The other is secondary.
MB:	But it is important.
MH:	It is important, yes, because even anything else, because students like to communicate and express and communicate these things that they have found.  That’s very good, but my interest isn’t getting on stage.  I think they should have their own program, and it will be a very sound experience and training if they want to go on into the dance, oh, they have such a background for it.
MB:	Did you find any other teachers, maybe not . . . that might have been teaching along these lines – the students, did they come from other people who may have been teaching this way?  Did you find any – Mary Bigbon (?)
MH:	Well, Mary Bigbon didn’t teach this way.  
MB:	She didn’t – I wonder if these people who have studied with her might, ah –
MH:	Oh, well that I don’t know.  I don’t think – (inaudible) because that was in the later years, after the Martha Grahams and the Doris Humphreys and the Harnya Holmes.
MB:	That’s what I wondered, if there were any of these people —
MH:	Oh, yes.  There have been some, sure.  But that was back in entirely different (inaudible) and the domination of the Holmes and the Martha Grahams.  That’s alright, too, if that’s what they want to do, but I’m talking about it as a creative art extension.  It didn’t fit that much for them.  But, you know the students that went from here did very well because they could adapt and enjoy it, too, because they knew what they were doing.
MB:	Um-hmm.  There’s many of them that have said that, that are in professional companies that attribute what they learned here from you.  
MH:	Well, you see, they teach themselves.  They don’t know it, but that’s what they were doing.
MB:	I think you had some importance.
MH:	Well, just there to remind them.
00:06:18
MB:	Where do you think that might belong, or do you think that has a particular place in the academic field?
MH:	Oh, I know. . . that is a good question, and I don’t know how to answer it because of the way of the set up.  Um, there is this, and I think that those who are especially interested in the dance being out of the department is that in the department, the way that it is, they cannot give the set up that will let dance (inaudible).
MB:	Now, are you talking about in physical education?
MH:	Yes, in physical education.  That is the only thing that I see that is – the thing is that if dance is to be put in the educational curriculum, now, I don’t care where it is, myself, I could teach in a barn and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, but if it is going to be put in a program, it should be put in for something that it can do that no other subject can do.  Don’t you see?
MB:	Um-hmm.
MH:	Now, the physical education – but this isn’t possible to give a theater and the costuming and the staging and all of that that’s going to be carried to (inaudible), but they can do just as good a job with cooperation right within the physical education department as any place else, and sometimes I kind of think might be better, I don’t know.
MB:	It kind of depends on how that can grow no matter what it might be, is that right?  If dance can grow to be –
MH:	Oh, yes, surely.  Just space, just space, that’s all you need.  But, there is – you see, there is this theater love and all and to perform, and that’s alright, too.  Now, then, that if – because that is what dance does that geography can’t do, or that basketball can’t do, or that swimming can’t do.  I mean, it has its own entity, and so often it is taken and put into – because it’s such good exercise (inaudible) but dance should not be thought of as that.  Other activities can do it just as well as dance:  flexibility and joint strength.  The thing that dance should be put in for is for what it can do and nothing else.  Now that is the thing that we can teach students.
MB:	And that’s what, again?  They can find --
MH:	Oh, they discover the way movement is used in dance, that they are responsible for their – the sensations of movement and responsible – they are the only receptors of the sensation of their own movements and they, alone, are responsible for their responses.
MB:	If you, um – this is a final question, here.  If you could, was there anything that you would change in the career that you’ve had in that do you think things have come a long way from your perspective as far as dance is concerned?
MH:	Oh, missy, I don’t know how other people are thinking and doing.  I haven’t been around enough to know that.
MB:	Well, in the years that you were teaching actively, you must have had a feeling of the pulse of growth of –
00:09:28
MH:	Oh, oh, yes.  Actually, I grew so in the concept.  Oh heavens, yes.  I mean more believing, more and more believing, and when I hear the – you know, this is personal – I don’t think it should go on there . . . well, when I was back at the alumni dinner, you know, in May, or June, whenever it was, in Wisconsin, it happened to be the 50th year, the class was – it was 19 . . . it was the 50th anniversary, that would be –
MB:	1922?  1921?
MH:	Yes, 1921, 1922, and every girl was there I think I had had in class, and it was simply marvelous to see them and the thing that I wanted to know, was had – had they gotten in a habit in (inaudible) time of difficulty or found any nourishing, that had any nourishing value from it.  And oh, my goodness, yeah (inaudible) and the husbands and all.  I remember once a person sent me a (inaudible) and he just wrote an article about it and what the philosophy had meant with their married life.  Those are the things I like to hear.
MB:	That there’s a real, there’s a carry over –
MH:	Oh, in life, yes, it’s to make a life that is creative and has qualities.  I have someplace in what I’m writing now, and the thing is if they find a student in this kind of dance experience, and find value and meaning that they can carry over, a quality way of life, that they can carry over and a way of adult living to show that they won’t have one quality of behavior on Sunday and another for family and friends and another for business.  Those are the things that I like to have gotten, because then it’s up to me.
00:11:33
MB:	What is the greatest value that you would like to have the students in dance discover?
MH:	I think it would be a knowledge of self.  It would be the first thing, so that they learn in this that they are the recipients of the sensations of their own acts.  So they realize that they are the recipients of the kinds of behavior, there’s a comeback on that.  And so if they behave so that they are true to their self image, they discover that not only am I the recipient of the sensations of my own acts, but I also am responsible for, um, how do I say that – I’m responsible for my own reaction.  And so it’s a question of the feedback, it’s just like the feedback in the movement sensation and you can really behave in a way that the feedback will give you the right image of yourself.  By that, by right image, I mean the image of the self you would like to be.
00:12:44
MB:	Where do you feel that belongs in the educational curriculum?
MH:	Well, first of all, to me it wouldn’t matter what department it was in, if it could be taught in the manner that it would contribute to a philosophy of education, which in its broadest sense, means educating for a good way of life.  No matter where it is included, it should be included for values that are offered by no other subject.  As far as the physical education department is concerned, it’s quite natural that it might be included there because its medium is movement and I would like to add here there is something that we must not forget, and that is had it not been for women’s physical education, the leaders in physical education several years back, we would not have dance in our schools today.  Maybe that might have happened, but at that time, when I first began my study in dance, there were no departments of dance, but the women who were at the head of the department felt that physical education was not fulfilling, but they had hoped for just two sports and games and gymnastics and it was they who offered dance in whatever form they could find it and it was very much in its beginning, and that’s how dance in the beginning was a part of physical education.  That is how dance started, in the physical education departments.  It was those departments, those early women, who gave it a chance, and we must be ever grateful.  But since dance is in the physical education department, um, it ought to be included because of very special contributions that it has to make.  It shouldn’t be offered because it teaches flexibility and endurance and strength because those values of movement can be taught in other ways.  Of course, dance has to use endurance and strength and flexibility.  That is not dance’s unique contribution.  It employs those forces.  Its special contribution that has concerned me is the art usage of movement, which makes a movement dance.
00:15:10
MB:	What was happening in New York in the arts at the time you were there?
MH:	Well, it was a time of revolt; painters were revolting the old techniques and disciplines, and it was the same way with music and it was also very evident in dance.  I went to studios where they were teaching, we’ll say, at that time, modern dance, but I found it was as rigid in its disciplines as the technique they were – the point was, they were different movements, but were as rigidly disciplined and always was dictated by the instructor whom the class tried to emulate.  Let’s see, um . . . I was fortunate because of the whole season of ballet, which I enjoyed, of course, from the spectacle of it, but was very much disappointed in movement because, again, the same movements were employed but only throughout the program but in different costumes and with different music. I still couldn’t find something that was creative.  Of course, I appreciated the exquisite technique and control that it displayed but, again, very little of creative work.  And I must say that I saw some beautiful dancers in the ballet style, but I was looking for something different which I did find in Isadora Duncan’s dancing. I saw her several times and she was highly dramatic and it was the audience response to her was something that interested me very much.  It was terrific, both in its sincerity and audience response. I did feel, however, that it was too personal and emotional.  I felt, again, the lack of discipline.  To me, I felt – now, wait, she had dramatic qualities, but not – that gave it a universal – 
00:17:25	End of Tape 2
Second Interview Session (1975)
Tape 3, Side 1
00:00:22
CG:	You know that I’ve never taken dance here, but would you mind sitting here?
MH:	Oh, no.
CG:	Then I can look at my notes and we can talk a little bit.  I did take a dance course, a modern dance, at Berkeley.
MH:	Um-hmm.
CG:	In about 1961, and that’s where I first read your book.
MH:	Oh, you read that? (laughing)
CG:	Yes, on movement, I think.  You know, the UW Press one.
MH:	Oh.
CG:	It has the dancers on the front.
MH:	Oh, oh, oh, yes – Let’s Dance.
CG:	Yeah.
MH:	Ah-huh.
CG:	 It was very, very interesting.
MH:	Well then you got my philosophy, if you read that.
CG:	Well, you see how it (inaudible).  It’s been some ten years, 11 years, you know, so I need a refresher course (laughing).  I’d like to just ask you about – this won’t bother you --
MH:	I’ll try not to -- You know, when I say I don’t like interviews, I’m not saying I don’t like interviewers.  If I could just have you on the floor to have you experience what we’re going to talk about, I’d love that.  I mean, if you could get in the class situation or something.  
CG:	O.K.
MH:	But, anyway, it’s good to start with a question.
CG:	What I’m interested in, I’ve got some – you know, I’m a company man, and I work for the University.
MH:	When you say “company man,” you mean production?.
CG:	No, I mean, just a company -- when you work with General Motors, you want to talk about Chevrolet.
MH:	Oh, um-hmm.
00:01:48
CG:	So I want to talk about establishing the dance department here in 1926.
MH:	1924,  I believe it was.
CG:	O.K.  Well, our information says 1926.
MH:	Doesn’t matter -- what’s two years?
CG:	Um, what was the impetus behind that and how did it go?  Do you recall some of the problems –
MH:	I certainly can.  It’s a very interesting story.  You see, I had never (inaudible).  I didn’t know anything about even – I think, I,  perhaps, was in a group troop dance or something like that and I was so much more interested in athletics for women.  But I was asked, Miss Trilling, who was head of the department then wanted to establish, as all the universities were beginning to look toward that, and asked me if I wouldn’t like to teach dance, or would I teach dance?  I was going to go to New York that year, take it off,  and take more of the philosophy.  My major was science and biology, and my minor, philosophy.  And I’ve always been interested in the educational aspect that is not performance, but through performance, as discovery of self, of the creative self.  And that wasn’t even heard of at that time, and that was my only interest in athletics, was for the same reason.  
00:03:02
	And Miss Trilling – if I run with this, I’ll be telling you how I got into it, rather than what I’m doing, but, well, we’ll see.  And she said, then, “Wouldn’t you go on after New York and see what’s being done, what’s being taught, in New York?”  And at that time, 1917, it was just in the midst of going into war and it was a very interesting time to be in New York because – not because of the war, I don’t mean that, but because of – there was a revolt in all of the arts, music was being – a lot of the old forms and ideas about music were breaking down, new forms were appearing, and the same thing was happening in painting and it was also happening in dance, but not – because dance wasn’t yet very well known.  It was known in terms of ballet more than anything else, but there were a few who were dissenting and were not teaching ballet, but I went to all these places, and the more I saw about that, the more I disliked it.  It was just a question of minding other peoples’ movements.  Well, there’s nothing in that.  And, um, so I kept writing back to Miss Trilling, “I shall never teach dance.  I can’t find anything that I would want to teach, or I think that you would want me to teach.”  But then she kept – she’d see something else in the paper and, “Go and see what this person is doing.”   I went to ballet studios.  I went to the people who were dissenting and were trying something different.  But here was the interesting thing:  they were as limited in their point of view as the ballet was in it.  Of course, it was many different movements, but imitating and being told what to do.
CG:	Um-hmm.
MH:	So that didn’t satisfy, either, and just about oh, about six weeks before I was about to come back, and the idea was – oh, I was studying at Columbia at the same time, to come back to the University and commence to teach and the teachers were all over the country who were seeking something that summer.  
00:04:59
	Well, just about six weeks before I was to come back, Miss Trilling said, “I have heard of a music teacher that is doing something very interesting in dance,” so I went to Miss Bentley, she was in Carnegie Hall, and I told her my story.  And I would wonder if she would let me work with her.  Well, at first she didn’t let me, because she had a group of students whom she had had since they were children.  Her main thing was – well, she was a teacher of music, but she taught music creatively:  children made their own songs, they made their own melodies. So you can see, that woman had something.  Well, she didn’t know movement, that wasn’t it, but she did have us get on the floor – now, this was the thing that struck me – to get on the floor and she had some exercises that were freeing, but she didn’t know why or that sort of thing, but she was one of these intuitive people, but was getting at the right thing.  But really, that first morning lying on the floor, I said – it was just like a fresh – “Of course get on the floor where you are relieved from the pull of gravity.”  Because I’d had a great deal of anatomy and physiology and that sort of thing, and “see what the natural structural movements are where there isn’t any need of balance or the need of satisfying a necessity to strike out or to throw,” to get at the organic thing, and I saw it in that very minute, and I got very excited and I talked to her about it.  Well, she didn’t – you never heard the (inaudible) but the point was, I was put in a situation where I got a great deal out of it. 
00:06:38
	And so I was so enthusiastic and I went into her and told her what I was thinking, and she said, “You never can do anything in a college, anything like this.  You stay in New York and develop,” and I said, “I don’t want studio work.  I want college work,” and, but anyway, I was so convinced of what I thought I saw.  Well, at that particular time, my brother was at Harvard Medical School and I was going east to see him and at that time, there was a Harvard School – oh, I don’t remember what it was called – but it was a school of physical education where you could get some summer work, and also Dr. Salzman and Carl Schribner, two outstanding men in our field at that time.  So I thought, well, I’ll go and talk to them.  They’ll know what I’m talking about.  They didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was talking about, didn’t teach physiology or any of that, and so I thought, “alright, I will leave and go see Miss Homans.”  Miss Homans was a perfectly beautiful elderly woman who was in charge of Wellesley College at the time and she was very dissatisfied in what had been done in dance and she was a very well educated woman, and I thought, “Well, she will know what I’m trying to do.”  Well, I made an appointment and went to see her.  I was out being dismissed in the hall in about ten minutes.  And I couldn’t understand.  
00:08:02
	Well, then I went back to New York and there’s a funny incident here.  I don’t know whether you want to use it or not, but at the time, I was working very hard, because I was working at – I didn’t get my masters from Columbia, but I got back here, but I just wanted to get some more philosophy, and listen to what they had to offer.  And I was fortunate to be asked to be the graduate – representative of the graduate school on this board of philosophers.  So I got to hear all kinds of educational series, nothing about dance, though, or movement.  But, anyway, I just thought, “why can’t there be a form of dance?” and thinking of dance as really a disciplined, creative activity, you see; a creative art form, not one with a little, false movement position, but where the movement was disciplined through knowledge of it as a medium.  So that when used, it would evoke and communicate the movement, you see; so movement has a double way stretch – it has to not only support the local motion, but its tensions have to be used – just like a musician would use notes to evoke a reaction, knowing what the material will do, you see?  Well, I just stretch (inaudible) movement, and even movement brings music into existence.  Everything that we do is brought – is so beautifully connected with every sensory impression that we have.  We wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for that.  And, um, now I got this idea through my study of physiology of exercise where the isolated muscle is – (inaudible) muscle is set up and the arm is out here and stretched and then you stimulate the muscle and you get a recording like this.  Now there’s your whole series of rhythm, right there.  All movement depends upon the nature (inaudible) and there has to be an impulse and a release of (inaudible) before you can start again, and there’s the whole principle.  But you didn’t hear anything about that.  
00:10:18
	Well, so, I was working pretty hard, and then – now, this is personal, but it’s kind of amusing.  Ah, my hair had commenced to come out and I didn’t, and still don’t, have much hair, but when I grew up, they were wearing wraps and kind of doing the sort of thing they’re doing now, and I thought, “oh, why can’t women have short hair?”  Well, my hair commenced to come out (laughing) and I went to see about it, and they said the only thing you can do is to cut your hair and save what little hair you have. And I thought, “What would happen?”  Listen, short hair, New York, dance . . . and women weren’t cutting their hair yet.  But Miss Bentley, this woman that I admired so much, she was a great – and she did have short hair, and I just envied that, and I thought, “how wonderful.”  But I thought, “my goodness, if that happens and word gets back to Wisconsin, they’ll be just one thing:  ruined woman.”  But I went in, anyway, and I never said a word to anybody, and every night, I’d get it up, and we didn’t have bobby pins in those days, and it wasn’t so easy, but, anyway.  Ah, that happened to me.  
00:11:36
	Then it was about time for me to come back to the University to teach summer school and there was a perfectly lovely group of young women and young teachers who were looking for something, and I came back with an idea completely formed, only just a hopeful one, but nothing worked out, and within that six weeks and that wonderful group of people, we ended with really a production, that was the last word, of perfectly lovely things, a production that first summer.
CG:	Did that sort of seem radical?
MH:	Well, I found out it was.  I was supposed to be (inaudible), but it was very interesting, but everything was very sympathetic.  I mean, people seemed to feel that there was something there.  It was only some articles, but it wasn’t in a way of – a despairing way at all.
CG:	Um-hmm.
00:12:27
MH:	Now, then, so when the fall began, and here came students.  At that time, of course, the university’s registration with so many from smaller towns, never had seen dance, and there was an awful lot that didn’t know and so, but anyway, they signed up, and the summer school teaching went very well but, of course, there were more mature minds to work with.  And, but we started and I had to teach them in what was then – it was called the concert room, and it was the only theater there was on the campus, one little room.  Now, there were pillars.  The pillars were something for the students to hide behind.  And it was – I had the mark on the floor and had them get aesthetically aware, and had a blindfold so they couldn’t see or imitate and had to feel, to realize there was an awareness in all of this, and connect -- to experience these sensations before we commenced to intellectualize about them, to form ideas.  I mean, you have to have experience before there can be knowledgeable information, you see?  It – working right into the student.  They never saw me to imitate, and I never taught a class without a skeleton.  
CG:	Why?	
MH:	To show the structure.  The structure response is first.  Look, the structure response is first because in times of expression and extension and rotation, which is movement vocabulary just like words are, just like Mozart in music, every movement we  make uses the same mode of vocabulary, but what makes for the difference is the sense need and whether the sense need is to strike out.  Does that mean to discipline something?  Does it mean to handle something?  It’s the source is the same.  The form is determined by the sense need.
CG:	O.K.  Can you kind of outline the spread of this particular form of dance, then, to – did it go to other –
MH:	Yeah, I’m getting to this.  I’m giving you all of this to let you see.  No, I’ll have to just tell you this to show you that it’s not a really individual thing.
CG:	O.K., go ahead.
MH:	Well, but that’s a good question.  So, I stuttered – and, remember, I was a beginner myself.  I started, and we were timid and all, but gradually, it commenced to (inaudible).  So, one day, I was walking up the hill, and a professor at the University stopped me and said, “Marge, what in the world are you doing? We can’t get our students to write up on anything but dance,” and I said, “I don’t know,” but I said, “I do know there is something that may develop out of what we’re doing,” and so it went on, that little bit.  
00:15:41
	And then it got spread around every University, and we were asked to come and give a demonstration of it.  Now, up until that time – the reason, one of the reasons I’m telling you this is that I owe so much to the faculty of this University.  They gave me the freedom to develop this when it wasn’t being done anywhere in the world, and I owe them a great deal.  I owe them a great deal, and you’ll see I owe the students a great deal and whenever I get any awards, I wish I didn’t have to take it.  I take it for them.  They’re the ones that found the reality and gave it reality.  Well, the University had never permitted students, women, to go off the campus to represent them, but you know we were given permission to go, and we went under these circumstances:  the students never knew what I was going to ask them to do.  Otherwise, how could I prove that it was creative?  They never knew, and that experience was simply lovely and it  went on until we got too many – it was too much – it was 10, 12 girls and those trips were long; sometimes it was overnight, and was good for all of us to not have it, and so then people came here from different schools.  But what to do?  We just had that one little room in Lathrop and how would we have room, we didn’t know when it would be there.  How would I be able to give a lecture demonstration if there were no room available?  And, oh yes, as we were working now on our own and had the program, we were going to give our first program.  Well, you can imagine the excitement and the wonderment and the anxiety.  
00:17:29
	Now, Miss Trilling, who had wanted me to go and do this, came – this sounds as if  I’m being critical; it’s only explaining something – and had faith in me, came, to watch a class I don’t believe more than three times, and she only stayed as long as we were working on the floor.  She never saw the movements that we were doing worked into a disciplined art form.  And we were giving our first program and we had to do it outside because we didn’t have even a little theater in Bascom at the time, and oh, those servicemen at the building were simply marvelous in helping, and we had only horses for trucks that time, no wagons, they would cut bows and building backgrounds – terrific amount of preparation went into our production.  And so, the day of dress rehearsal, Miss Trilling called me in and she said, “Marge, I’m sorry, but this isn’t what I hoped you could do,” and I said, “Miss Trilling, please wait.”  Oh, when I came back from New York, I immediately went to Miss Trilling and said, “Miss Trilling, I’ve cut my hair.”  She said, “My Lord, Marge!  Can’t you see what’s going to happen on this campus?  The girls will all be cutting their hair, and the girls in this department, I won’t be able to place them because they’ll all be thought to be manly,” and I said, “I know, Miss Trilling, and if that happens . . . “ and she started to say, “I’ll have to ask you to resign,” and I said, “Miss Trilling, you won’t have to say it, because I will  understand and I will resign.”  Then I went down to the Dean of Women and I told her and she said, “how I envy you,” (laughing) – were those two extinct.  I’m just giving you some of those things that happened along the way, and I have another one coming up.  So, um, well then we went on and she said, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t . . . “and I said, “Miss Trilling, wait until you see the program tonight,” and she did and we gave the program, and we had to repeat it.  Well, anyway, when it was over, I could just see her coming through.  She said, “Marge, this was beautiful.  I’ll never say another word.  Go ahead.”  Well, from then on is when we commenced to people who saw it at all the other campuses, and then the newspaper commenced to get a hold of it, and they wanted to come and write magazine articles and put it in newspapers, but I’d have none of that.  It had not been proved yet and I could just see oh, how it’d be written up to make it some cheap – because it wasn’t even an appreciation yet?  Do you see what I’m – do you understand?
CG:	Ah-huh, ah-huh.
MH:	So, I didn’t let any of that happen.  That was not in interviews or anything like that that I knew about, but then it went on.  Then we went.  Then we were stuck.  
00:20:21
	The next – then, people came here, and in that first year – it might have been the second year, I think it was the first year, a group came and said, “Miss  H’Doubler, can’t we have an extra class?  We’d like to do more work than is possible in class,” and I said, “of course,” or I said, “This is wonderful, and just chose a night,” and they choose a night and it was always on Wednesday nights, and out of that came the workshop producing, you see?  Then a little later – this was the second year, this was the first year, then they got a little bit conscious that there was something very special going on in that class where this group of girls came because they thought they found something vital and worked with such enthusiasm and sensitivity and cooperation which was quite a special experience.  Then they wanted to give it a name and I said, “that is alright, if it is more meaningful to you,” because it was just a deep seeded, yet an undefined something in their minds.  And we all – I said, “You get a name, and I’ll bring name,” and in all my readings, and I commenced to read a lot – oh, everything, all kinds of theater production and the social aspect, by that, I mean the ethnic aspect, if it hadn’t been dance, always why?  Why hasn’t it perished?  And so, I found in my reading this word Orchesis.  You’ve probably Orchesis, which became the name of the special group which produced.  But now, dance has gone so far that production in itself has taken the place of that little producing group.  And so, that happened.  And then we went on.  And then we became – and finally – oh, yes, and the students said, “Miss H’Doubler, from here on end, if there’s going to be – we have to do it, if you gave it –“ it was always at noon when the studio wasn’t used, and “you put the name on the board – “demonstration today” – and we’ll be there.”  They never missed.  They said, “We’ll come through Lathrop Hall on our way to lunch, and if there’s a demonstration, we will be there,” and that’s what they did.  They never failed to have a class.  
00:22:33
	And then Miss Homans came and they worked for her and then it was over and she was really a very well bred woman, and she had lots of dignity, but oh, she was a tough master.  And she called the students over and had them sit down, and she said, “young ladies . . . “she had one of these, at that time, the ladies wore a heavy row chain with a sliding guard on it, and she pulled them up and she said, “young ladies, I must tell you, I am not accustomed to complimenting young ladies, but I want you to know that this is the loveliest dancing I have seen.”  She had been to every place in the country.  She had taken a year off to go observe to see what she wanted to take back to Wellesley.  That was very nice, and then that same evening, Miss Trilling gave a lecture, not a lecture, a dinner, for Miss Homans because Miss Homans had been her instructor and it was through her school where the best people, and the classes were small, graduates got really very good positions, and Miss Trilling came from there, but she kept her finger on all of her graduates.  Well, and then that night at dinner, she got up and said, “I must make a statement.” She said, “two or three years ago (whichever it was), when Miss H’Doubler came to see me, “ she said, “I would not listen to her.  But she is doing one of the most educational things, I think . . . “ Here’s where the trouble was . . . she had written Miss Trilling to look out for me, that I had gone “cuckoo.”  Isn’t that interesting? Now, my point is – do you see what I mean?  It’s the students?  Through the lives of the students that it lives?  Surely.  Well, that was – and she did it beautifully, and so that got it all cleared up and Miss Trilling told me about it and that Miss Trilling was – she thought I was able to do it and she said, “Marge, I shall never say another word.  You go on,” and she supported me as much as she could with her limited budget.  Well, so it grew, and then came the necessity – other universities had commenced to ask for instructors. 
00:24:50
	But we had no course that was set up, not only to give the students the enjoyment and the knowledge and self knowledge that I must say is the only thing I’m after through the creative.  It’s first of all, what will dance as a creative artist, not an imitative one, can do for the realization of self.  Especially, “I am.  I am this person.  I can think and feel and do.  I am the recipient of the sensations of my own movements and I, alone, am responsible for my responses.”  I don’t care whether they ever grow in the program or not, that’s another story.  First of all, what would that do for them?  Then when they get fit, then maybe they can carry something that’s performed as up dance. 
00:25:34
	So, um, now where did I leave off?  Oh, then came the request for dancers, so I went to Miss Trilling and I said it probably is time to see if the University will recognize and give us a dance major and she said, “Marge,” and she was a southerner, “an idea,” but she just looked up as if she was taking the opinion of somebody else instead of seeing for herself and watching it.  But she was alright.  She really was remarkable and supported it with every step that she could get out of the budget for it.  “My Lord, Marge! Can you see this stayed university ever permitting a dance course?” and I said, “no, perhaps not, but let me work on a course and we will present it and it will be denied the first year.  Then I’ll take it the second, probably refused then, and I’ll take it the third time, and they’ll give it to me to get rid of me.”  Well, Dean Sellery offered to help me make out the course.  Oh, he was just wonderful.  And so it was made out and I presented it to the School of Education and it was passed unanimously.  Then it was presented to the faculty of the L & S Department and it was passed unanimously.  Do you know why?  Because of the nature of the work that the students had done.  You see, they knew – and here’s another thing that the students had done – because their papers were written, the instructors, and the psychology department and the philosophy departments let their students write in their papers on dance and you see how it got through through the students’ enthusiasms and beliefs?  
00:27:28
CG:	What about the – in some things that have been written about you, they talk about the Wisconsin idea of dance.  Is it similar --
MH:	Well, no, no – it was beautifully done, but it was stolen out of our library.
CG:	Um-hmm. 
MH:	Well, the dance idea is dance, first of all, is for creative living, hoping that the students will feel – because we definitely hope to be experiencing it as a fine art.  Now, everybody can experience dance as a fine art, but they will not be the ones that will because we should work as the artists of greater talent work.  It’s a question of identifying themselves with quality of experience and expression.  You see, after that’s where the discipline comes in.  And so if they find out which they do, because you’re working on what you do in relation to how you feel, and then when you do it, you execute it, there is a feedback of no – that doesn’t reflect what I really want it to be, or the person I would like to be, that image, you see.  Then that will carry over, I hope, into human relationships and behave the same way, in a quality way of behaving.  In other words, trying to reveal the attitude of your inner self toward the thing that you wish to communicate or inflict upon somebody else because whatever it is, if it reflects the best in you, the feedback is good. 
00:29:02	End of Tape 3, Side 1
Tape 3, Side 2
00:29:27
MH:	After that was over, you know, the students would come up, and I’m thinking of one group especially started with how much they enjoyed it, and it ended in hugging me, these men, young boys, and I said, “you know, if this has meant this much to you, please understand that you will learn from your own resources and you are working from that knowledge.  You probably discovered yourself, and I said, “sit down let’s talk this over,” and I said, “if more information all along through college can help you discover value and meaning to self that lead you to self discover, I don’t think you young people would be having the trouble on campus that you are, and you really have enjoyed this because you’ve enjoyed yourself doing this,” and you know, they just almost with a groan said, “oh, how true.”  Now this all happened spontaneously in each one of those universities.
CG:	Do you think there is something within each individual that –
MH:	Yes (inaudible).  You just can’t –
CG:	So you don’t necessarily have to be born with some –
MH:	Oh, no.  You are born with that tendency to start, to communicate and execute – and then, you know, there is a great joy in getting the sensation of moving.
CG:	Um-hmm.
MH:	And you can’t help in that second to see how the whole neuromuscular mechanism and the motor mechanism is tied up to the sensorial areas of sensorial impression.  It is implied, because to do that you get a motor response that you provide.  Oh, it’s deeply tied up with emotional reaction.  First of all, the necessity to react, and in that, according to results, movement has just got to be overloaded with emotional tension.  Oh, it’s (inaudible) out of people and (inaudible) because the awful form of ballet for young children, the emphasis is for a mother to say, “how soon will my baby dance alone in public?”
CG:	Americans don’t have the time, though, because of the lifestyle, you know?
MH:	They do in school.  Put it in the schools.  You have a captive audience.  What are we doing with them?  Oh, everybody has it, and the thing is, and out of something that young, if you are (inaudible), you are very, very gifted.  The rest of us will be an appreciative audience, and that’s what the artist needs.  So many of us have not a really a sense, a real honest sense of what (inaudible) called beauty.  It’s just what somebody else’s thinking, not necessarily – or they wrap it up and make it – they don’t want to be found not agreeing, you know, in conformity?  When we are free to be individual, to think (inaudible) we are not free individuals to do what you think is right in terms of values.
CG:	Well, thank you very much.  It’s been most enjoyable for me (tape cuts out)
MH:	Well, for many years, I never did – it’s just in the last few years –
00:32:44
CG:	This Blanche Trilling . . . I’m still not too clear as to what –
MH:	Well, she was the head of the department from – and she is the one who pushed me into this (laughing) and she was a – you know, she didn’t understand what I – but she believed in it.
CG:	Um-hmm, um-hmm.
00:33:08
MH:	I think you young men see what I mean that the students – oh, now this is what happens with a background like this:  they may go and study with any of our so-called artists and get a great deal because you know why?  Without destroying themselves, they know that the structural response is first.  They know the body’s technique.  This is the instrument, and out of that, they make their own lifestyle because they know the truth about the objective factors of motion and neuromuscular action.  I mean, just as a mechanism.  That’s what they’d be taught.  Then they can go and study with a Martha Graham or a Doris Humphrey or Emile Jaques or any of these people and recreate their lifestyle without destroying their own and they were very much appreciated in the group, and I remember the earlier days when there weren’t so many schools and so many from different places at the university.  “How in the world can you get that so quickly?”  Well, they know motion.  They know human motion and it’s just – oh, yes, now, I want to make just for your own pleasurement – you know, there is really honestly and clearly thinking there isn’t such a thing as a sad movement or a joyous movement.  There are those movements whose intensity of moving and it’s just using space and rhythm which will, when perceived, evoke the feeling.  Now, do you catch the difference?
CG:	Um-hmm.
00:34:38
MH:	Good.  Now, that’s where it lies.  Oh (off in the distance) – I don’t know what’s happened to all of these awards all of a sudden.  The National Education Association (inaudible) of physical education awarded me the (inaudible) prize.  Why am I telling you this?  Now, wait a minute . . . now, how did I happen to say that?
CG:	You were telling me that you relayed a lot of information to us.
MH:	Oh, yes, thank you.  Now that’s putting me on the track, and yes, I was accepting this for the students, and I thought that they should get it, too.  Well, then this year, they deemed in the board of control, or whatever they have, that all recipients write and have taped recording of their voice and a taping on their theory.  Well, I have slaved and worked to try to put in an hour what I tried to do in four years, and I haven’t it done yet, and really, this is what I do every free moment, and then my husband said, “why don’t you look into that last book:  Dance, the Creative Art Experience?” and I’m amazed at what I have said there.  It’s still there.  It’s still fresh.
CG:	Just send them a copy of the book and tell them to make their own tape.
MH:	What?
CG:	Just send them a couple of your book and tell them to make their own tape.
MH:	Oh, yes, but I really have tried to do, and I thought it might be interesting and I could make another book out of it, but it’s all in that book, stated in many different ways, that  it’s just an attempt to present to them in short, dramatic paragraphing development a way of thinking that lead to the course, and they can decide whether they think it’s a good way or not.  
00:36:43
	But, evidently prove it, because oh, the numbers – and how I get these notes from these little ladies that are 70 years old that were my students and they’re saying what it had meant to them.  That feels good.  
CG:	Thank you very much.
MH:	You’re very welcome.  
[Short exchange between interviewer and interviewee]
00:37:50	End of Tape 3, End of Interview
END