Badinerie
The first class of the mimosa group, 20 October 1987.
Händel: Fireworks Suite, 2nd movement “Badinerie”
Danish guests, Yelling Staatsseminarium
Broadcaster (BC): Klári is singing the song “On the shore of a ditch” barefoot, and in singing the names of the children one by one she touches their bare feet. She touches them and traces their names on their skin. Some of the children have taken off their socks, but many others have not: Klára traces their names on their hands.
Klara’s comments in italics: It is very good, if I can touch their skin and place the rhythm onto it so they can feel it directly from my fingers. Feet are sensitive. Such a sensation is interesting and unusual, so they pay more attention. A lot of children are afraid of being barefoot, though. This is apparently influenced by their bringing up and their customs at home.
BC: Those who are barefoot push together the soles of their feet and do a bit of wrestling with them. Klári’s feet meet everyone else’s feet in turn.
This is about getting familiar and family-like, the lady teaching music should not be so alien. Such games are played at home, not in the school.
BC: She touches the hands of those who don’t give their feet. She touches everyone differently, the palm, the wrist or the fingers.
In my presentation in Szeged a curious participant actually counted that I had 38 different variants of touching hands to the tune of my song. When we met there for the first time, there were first- and second-form pupils, children in the day-time home of a suburban school. If I want to repeat a song, I play such things because you can achieve great patience and prolonged attention with hands.
BC: One of the boys doesn’t give Klári his hand so she sings for the mother’s hands. A fair-haired little girl starts to cry when Klári approaches her, frightened, she clings to her mother. Klári kisses her feet and says, “It’s all right, Rita, we love you.” Her mother sings Rita’s name in a nice tune. She then releases Rita who stops crying.
Rita has never been in a community of children before. We are her first experience of a group. It is no wonder that she holds on for protection. This is very common among reticent children. The important thing is that she has somebody to hold on to. The singing mother provided an excellent initiative and example also for the others.
Klara: And what is my name? Who will ask my name?
BC: A little girl with brown hair and dark eyes comes up to her and asks her name. “Zsuzsi, my dear, my name is Klááááári” – she sings her name with a long cadence.
I never stick to the obligatory motifs of sol-mi or sol-mi-do (minor third, major triad). I don’t agree with the general practice of nursery schools. According to my experience, an interval learnt by practice will stick for ages, it can’t be erased. Let them live without the knowledge of sol-mi through their whole life rather than clinging to it as to some rope. Of course I am emphatic at this moment because of my passion.
BC: Another little boy dares walk closer to her and to him she sings “Klári, Kokas Klári” ornately, with trills.
Klara: There is somebody here who has the most beautiful name. Go ask her.
BC: They go to the Reed Fairy together, Klári is swinging her hands while Ági sings in her delicate voice that she is the Reed Fairy. She, just like Klári, sings a pentatonic tune. Klári tells the children why she became the Reed Fairy like that of Ági.
The question then comes, “Why does she have so little shoes?”
Klara: Go and ask her, you can even touch her shoes.
BC: Zsuzsi ventures there, touches the shoes, the Reed Fairy explains to her that her legs are paralysed. They are satisfied with the explanation.
Children are flexible, they accept the unusual. Adults are worried and pitying in the presence of disabled people but the children, in our classes, never appear worried.
Klara: Let’s make a reed house for the Reed Fairy.
BC: They start to make a thatched roof by throwing reed towards the wheelchair.
They throw pieces of reed on the wheelchair, to the happily laughing Reed Fairy, they are sure to accept her as a partner.
BC: The reed palace is now ready, they go inside and sing with the Reed Fairy leading “Thatched is the roof of my house”.
Klara: Who knows a ditty about birds?
BC: Réka knows one about crows, she and her mother recites it.
You could count somebody out with this ditty. The first one will enter the reed palace first.
BC: They count out Gazsi who goes into the reed palace happily, without fear.
The others are walking in a circle hand in hand. Children and parents together and there are so many of them. The circle is huge and there is scarcely enough room.
Soon most of the company will be in the centre of the circle, since at the end of every song they choose somebody, and those who are chosen will stay inside. No one is left out. That is why drama-play is useful.
Klara: What are you making in this reed palace? Are you cooking lunch?
BC: They like it, they are cooking and stirring now.
We have boys who cook, now, that is really something.
BC: The Reed Fairy’s wheelchair is the stove and they are making strudels and pancakes filled with peanut butter there. They are making lots of delicious foods. Rita and her mother are cooking too.
Klara: Do offer some of your food to the guests, they came from Denmark, they must surely like pancakes and strudel.
Zsuzsi: And rice-pudding with chocolate.
BC: “To be sure they do” – says Klári and explains to the guests in English what they will get. The Danes are happily eating their meal, since Gazsi, Laura and Zsuzsi, and some other children with their mothers or fathers serve them round.
Our guests were great partners, they ate and drank trustfully. I have had several presentations where only a few people of the large audience of pedagogues accepted the poppy-seed cake from the children’s hands as real. They didn’t even put down the notebook and the pen to take it. You see, the strudel is only there if you believe it.
Zsuzsi: Kittens also like rice-pudding.
Klara: Be a kitten in the reed palace.
BC: Zsuzsi becomes a kitten immediately, she squats happily as a kitten.
Klara: What other animals may live in the reed palace?
Gazsi: Dogs.
Klara: Great! What breeds?
BC: Gazsi is thinking hard.
Klara: Will there be small, curly haired, white dogs, or large, shaggy St. Bernards, or perhaps a quick black dachshund?
BC: Gazsi chooses the dachshund.
He may not have seen a dachshund before, but this doesn’t matter, the important thing is that he should see variants in dogs as well, not just one dog barking bow-wow, as typically “dog”. His family has never had a dog. Gazsi is from Budapest.
BC: Even an elephant is coming to join us.
Klara: Little elephant girl, Réka, please put your trunk into Reed Fairy’s lap so that she wouldn’t be afraid of you.
Elephants are popular and are loved by children; they fit into tales so well. Fortunately, they don’t roar so loud as lions, which are the absolute favourite animal of children.
BC: Gazsi is a crow, and starts to caw.
Klara: The cawing is nice, let us give it a try, too.
BC: They start to caw at the top of their voice. Kinga yells so hard, her face becomes flushed.
Kinga used to attend last year, too, from the second term on. According to the doctor’s diagnosis she is autistic, but this is not sure. All we see is that she is constantly wandering about, listening to no one, muttering all the time, not heeding any instruction or request. As she wasn’t admitted to any nursery school, we received her because we love her. She is a nice little girl. Children in our group accept unusual personalities. Kinga is quite different and the others accept her but fortunately don’t imitate her shouting.
Klara: Kinga, everybody should speak and sing delicately in the red palace, otherwise it would collapse from the shouting. Wouldn’t it Reed Fairy?
BC: Kinga obeys quite unexpectedly, and goes on cawing more quietly.
If only I knew why she obeyed, that would be great!
Klara: We can have all kinds of birds in the reed palace. What other birds do you know?
BC: The children name sparrows, tomtits, thrushes, and eagles.
It is a pleasant surprise that they know so many. It is quite a good list from children growing up in the city.
BC: Klári begins to sing “Thatched is the roof of my house”, and the children fly about everywhere. They are swinging their arms very uniformly.
This is the form of flying practised in nursery schools. It is uniform, as bricks in a wall.
Klara: Eagles don’t fly in exactly the same way as sparrows, do they?
BC: She shows them different kinds of flying, with great, spread wings, and the first attempts of small ones.
The greater contrasts of movement I show them the easier it is for them to recognise great differences. Later, fortunately, there are always nimble and imaginative children who bring their own individual style of flying among us, and inspire the others with their movements.
BC: They are flying in and out the reed palace to Klári’s song. She sings quietly; interestingly. The children aren’t noisy, and she can be heard.
If I were singing loudly, they would make much noise. Quiet singing helps quiet movement.
Klara: The Reed Fairy loves chirping. She often talks to birds. By the end of the song, fly to her and talk to her in bird-language. She will understand it! Won’t you, Reed Fairy?
They can’t use their voices to the music. They can only move. But I like to make them try out their voices in different ways not only in singing, but in freely making other sounds. The speech of the birds is a game of imagination and Reed Fairy is a good partner in this game. She too can chirp like a real bird.
BC: Many really seem to like going to the Reed Fairy to chirp and to make friends.
Gazsi-Thrush, do you like nuts?
BC: Gazsi loves nuts.
Klara: I turn into a nut and I roll, try to peck me!
BC: She curls up into a ball and begins to roll as a nut. Gazsi goes after her and pecks her.
I turn into a nut. Movements taken from reality as well as imagination. They know nuts, they have seen whole nuts, not only the kernels, or ground nuts in a cake. Nuts roll, that’s easy. The surface of nuts is rough to the touch, their shells are hard: this becomes clear through more intensive consideration. What about the inside? They are different inside. That’s what we are concentrating on now.
Klara: Choose your mum, dad or one of the guests for nuts.
BC: Mothers enter into the game hesitatingly, some of the fathers, too, but they are mostly standing nuts.
It would be different if they came prepared with regard to their clothing. I wear loose trousers and roll about freely. For most of the parents, this is the first class. Some have already visited classes last year, but still have not remembered how they might be asked to move.
BC: Klári encourages the Danish guests who begin to roll about, even girls in skirts.
This is a question of upbringing. They move freely in their schools in Denmark, and I have never seen anyone concerned about her skirt. It is not so important to be dressed very smartly, and they wear all sorts of casual clothes, young people’s fashion. No, clothes are not significant here. The expression of the imagination through free movement is the first school of self-expression. If I am a nut, I roll, this is the first importance.
BC: Kriszti does not dare to move, even though she would like to. She whispers to her mother and tries to persuade her.
Klara: Two nuts together are twin-nuts. I have seen such with their stalks grown together. They were in the same green husk. Do make yourselves a thick, green outer husk now.
BC: The kneeling mother embraces Kriszti who rolls to and fro in the husk.
Great idea. Go and find yourselves husks.
BC: Even fathers venture into the game now and the company becomes animated.
They must have gotten over being scared of the rolling. My wisdom comes from the children, if I can’t invent the way to get something going, they will usually figure a way for it to happen.
BC: Klári explains the husk to the Danes, too. They would like to play with the children, but the newest children are still not brave enough to play with strangers.
You can see in the advanced classes how easily they make friends a couple of years later.
Klara: Let’s have some music because you can roll in the husk very nicely to Händel’s music.
BC: They are moving about to the music making much noise, everybody is talking happily, even the Danes are chatting.
Klara: Come, let us sit down and discuss something very important.
BC: There are lots of them, but eventually everybody finds a place to sit down. Klári begins talking very quietly, they all fall silent.
Klara: Händel loved this piece of music very much. He gave it the title ‘Fireworks’. The composer imagines every note inside, within his thoughts. Each and every note is very important to him. Each and every note. When he writes it down, he hopes that people will listen to each and every note. That is why we dance quietly, not talking to each other during the music. Because we want to inscribe each and every note in our hearts. Each and every note. Just like Händel who wrote this piece.
They will hear this content a thousand times yet, from me and from one another too. It is important to dance quietly not only because the noise of talking disturbs and even cancels out the sound of music, but also because somebody who talks will dance with only half-concentration and receive the music with only a fragment of his attention.
BC: She repeats this in English, the Danes are nodding in consent. The music starts again and now there is greater attention. One or two mums are still talking, but they are not loud.
I am always amazed by how adults behave. These mothers came with the best intentions, they have some idea why they brought their children to my class. Still, what I have just told them – it was pretty clear, wasn’t it? – seems to go in one ear and out the other. They may have understood it, though, and perhaps they can’t follow suit. Adults can only make attempts with words, they lack other means. It takes a couple of years for them to understand what influential, effective, great means are hidden in non-verbal communication.
BC: The Danes are dancing completely silently, they have understood. Klári is a nut again, rolling to and fro at great speed, at different paces, according to the music. Sometimes she bumps into a child, hugs him or her, then rolls on.
One of the means of making connections is to join the children in dancing in this or that way, as I happen to invent it. Nut-rolling is excellent, I can reach many places in little time. I don’t have to stay at one place for a long time, a touch, a look, one’s presence and closeness may be enough.
Klara: You can plant the nuts, and they may become walnut trees. They may grow many leaves.
We begin to unfold the significance of growing from a seed, out of all good material beautiful plants may grow.
BC: The performances of growing are already nicely quiet, we can even see some slow growths. Zsuzsi reaching up high holding on to her mother, Robi is sitting on his father’s shoulders.
Yes, they are aided in their growth by their parents. It is good if this is supported by beautiful, clear music.
Klara: If rain falls on them, walnut trees grow faster. Become the rain!
Some ideas may nicely inspire the parents’ musical movements as well. It is easy to play rain with one’s fingers, and it will possibly go well to the rhythm of the music.
BC: Now they start running around, chasing each other again, especially boys.
zKlara: I have seen many beautiful dances, let us sit down and see one.
The first solo dance. We settle down, concentrate and watch one of the dances.
BC: They settle quite soon.
Klara: Laura, will you show us your dance? Show it with your eyes if you are ready for the music in your soul.
BC: Laura stands attentively and goes to dance on hearing the first note. She hops around with the rhythm. Towards the middle of the piece Klári tells the others that they may join Laura.
In the beginner group we only watch a dance from the beginning to the end if the movement is especially good or the music is less than a minute long. Solos here are rather for focusing the group’s attention and directing it to what I would like to show them. As their attention does not last long, and they have not got used to concentration yet, it is advisable to call for it for only a short period. Laura was hopping to the music, and it was good to see this, since most of the children were still far from the music at that time. Laura’s hops could be taken as example, without saying so of course, since I only ask them to imitate out of fun, and even then we play many different things. At a given point in the music, therefore, I cued them in to follow Laura.
BC: Klári is sitting and watching them with joy, she is spinning around sitting.
If any kind of disorder occurred, I would set it right through dancing. I initiate some distinct movement which will definitely call their attention. In this case, however, there was no need to interfere, it was enough to study their movements from the place where I was sitting. I get to know a lot of things about their abilities of motion, their attention and their inclination for music.
BC: Right after that she lies down on her back and says: “Let us dance lying down.”
“Right after” is the right expression, the success of teaching depends on how intensively I join activities. The wind blows through loose connections just like through tattered clothes. If you wait until the end of the round dance, and then try to find out what’s next, all sorts of winds will blow through the holes of your clothes and children will run to the four winds. When I was teaching methodology, we always put great emphasis on time-planning – being very present and alert for the “teachable” moment.
BC: The Danes clearly like the idea, they have already lain down and begun dancing in all kinds of positions with their feet reaching up and joining hands – two of them are doing exactly this right in front of me. Children seem to like this, too, they lie down where there is room, and are “dancing”, flinging their feet around. Zsuzsi is really absorbed, alone, she is looking at the lamps above and makes real musical movements.
Klara: Let us see Zsuzsi, come here everybody, please.
BC: They watch Zsuzsi, she is dancing very well, delicately, listening to the music with attention. Klári hugs her at the end.
Zsuzsi was a gift. The first real musical attention. You could see the inward attention on her face, I could almost see music entering her brown-haired little head with tunes and harmonies and finding a home there. It is no wonder Händel wrote out this piece in score in his inspired moments. On these occasions we watch the solo from the beginning to the end, this is real teaching, through example.
Klara: Let us lie down now and put our heads together and tousle our hair. You can do it with your hands, but with you can also do it with your head or hair in the way the music tells you.
They have scattered during the solo, now attention turns to connections again, and the hair-tousling game is only possible in pairs.
BC: Klári shows one kind of hair-tousling with a Danish girl who is happily shaking her long hair. They start to do it to the music. A little boy is tousling the scarce hairs of his father who is almost bald. The father doesn’t mind, he holds out his head nicely.
Only once have I met a mother who pulled away her head from her son in some fabled-activity connected to hair. True, it was apparent that her hair was freshly styled. But the little boy could not do anything with his mother, neither her hair, nor her hands, nor her soul were available for him.
Klara: Who will show us a hairy-dance?
BC: A nice little girl comes forward saying she wants to dance with the Reed Fairy.
Klara: We will watch with our hearts wide open.
BC: Bori holds her fair-haired head to the Reed Fairy who – with the help of her teeth – lifts her arm and strokes the hair delicately to the music.
To the music, indeed! All the movements of the Reed Fairy are full of music. I would have sent one of the children to her for a solo anyway, but it worked better in this way – at Bori’s request. Let me note that Bori had not sat next to the Reed Fairy until then. She was dancing somewhere with her father, and devised this meeting there. Her father may have encouraged her. He was a smiling fair-haired young man with a moustache, I’d fondly wish a nestful of other children for him. There are few parents rich in emotion who find their bearings and send their children wisely to the clear source of emotions.
BC: Everybody watches this in silence, even the children rambling around stop.
Inspiration is a great thing; as they who have not been battered flat will feel it.
Klara: Who wants to jump high?
BC: She shows them how. They roar, since this is great indulgence, they don’t have to do it to music, they jump as hard as they can, there is no music now.
It feels good to ease up with large, loose movements after such concentrated emotions. I allot a place for such activities, yet I encircle them completely so that there are safe boundaries. It is possible for a teacher to be overwhelmed by the unbounded enthusiasm, the merrymaking of our children who live as if their lives were sealed tight in bottles. Is it a wonder if the corks of their bottles burst high?
BC: Klári is jumping less and less high, more and more quietly, then she becomes closed and hops only to herself with very soft and small leaps. Children are amazed and slowly they stop jumping high one by one. Klári crouches, now only her fingers are hopping on the carpet in the way her feet were jumping moments ago. She watches her fingers closely and concentrates only on them.
It is an accurate description, it says what is essential. “She watches her fingers closely and concentrates only on them.” If my motivation is so intense it isn’t be possible to scatter it. My attention is inward, that is how it becomes an example to be followed. From great, noisy movements we change to small, quiet movements, I can only control that through my example. It’s not possible to generate such attention from noise with my voice. The strength of the loud voice would only increase noise.
BC: Children begin the hand-game, there are some who do it very cleverly, others are only staring. Klári says quietly: “I am leaping over an ant, careful, I don’t want to crush it. Now I leap over a mosquito”.
Leaping over an ant is a little aid to the imagination, it can only be a small and imaginary movement, since in reality we don’t leap over ants or mosquitoes. But that is why it’s magic.
BC: Finally she lets her hands down, sighs and says: “Let us sing a farewell song, come, let us sit round Reed Fairy”.
There is great hustle and bustle again, everybody is talking until they settle. Klári is not waiting for silence, she starts to sing the song “The rose has opened” and, according to the lyrics, sticks a flower on Réka’s tilted hat. Réka, in turn, sticks a flower on Zsuzsi’s head. They are already at the fourth child but there is still rambling around, these parents do not know at all how we say goodbye.
No, they don’t. Even if everybody were talking to his or her own child quietly, that would be noisy enough to cancel out the singing. But they are not talking quietly but are chattering. I could say “Silence please!”. But such instructions do not fit our group. I try something else instead.
Klara: I can see that our Danish guests have already settled, let us ask them to sing us something from their own folksongs. But to listen to that we have to fall silent, it is not nice to listen to their beautiful songs with half attention.
BC: Klári had agreed with the Danes to do this, and now they start singing, very beautifully. There are many of them and all of them are singing, the whole room is resounding with their voice. Children fall silent, surprised.
They were singing very beautifully, indeed. They are not musicians, but students in a teacher training college, Their singing is full of their soul and joy, they love singing. That is why the whole room is resounding, and that is why the little ones are listening to them.
BC: At the end of the song, Klári asks Gazsi to stand beside her and says: “Gazsi will be our candle, Kriszti will light him. Come, Kriszti, light this nice piece of candle.” Gazsi is standing as candle with his belly thrown out. Kriszti lights the candle with the help of her mother. They sing the song “The candle is lit”. Klári is telling them singing: “Choose somebody!”
They choose. Gazsi chooses a thin, fair-haired boy, Kriszti chooses Réka.
Klara: I hope you smiled at him when you chose him. You will have to choose your wife in that way, too.
BC: Réka lights the little fair-haired boy. This seems to be very interesting to the others, they stop loafing around on the armchairs, and are watching.
Klara: Choose a light for yourselves, be candles.
BC: Most of them go to their parents, they light them one by one. Klári is singing the song “Kis kece lányom” now, and tells the Danes that they could join the singing, since the tune is easy. They sing right away, of course without the words. With this, the farewell has become nicely quiet. They go to get their coats. Everybody is talking again, but now not so noisily.
I was afraid they would start making noise after the Danes’ singing. The lighting of living candles brought personal attention. Once their children get a chance to move freely, most parents will chase them around in vain. When and where can a child chase others and be chased on armchairs and tables? It is really difficult to give up such fun, and it is impossible to keep order if there are many of them. They will stir up one another. It is, however, worth turning into a candle, it is not an everyday experience to be lit. A candle is not merely an object. Light hides in the candle. Even children suspect that even though they rarely see candlelight.