SONG AND DANCE FOR CHILDREN

Ripple Effect

Jean was active in several anthroposophical groups in London. She worked for years with Dr. Rudi Lissau, author, and established a strong friendship with Marion Dyson.

Marion Dyson was branch leader at Manchester and headteacher at an infants school where she developed the Initial Teaching Alphabet. Their dialogue was formative, as Jean had started at St Thomas’s Hospital with song and dance moves with young children.

For years, Jean earned her living as a teacher in ‘special needs’ state primary schools. Later she was appointed as a therapeutic movement teacher in the Department of Child Psychiatry at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Dr. Eva Frommer (German Psychiatrist) was the consultant in charge of the Psychiatric Day Unit. Jean’s contribution of her eurythmy classes were having a magical effect on the children, visitors and parents were deeply impressed. Many of the children came from severely dysfunctional and culturally deprived backgrounds.

“Magical”

Jean’s contributions to Eva Frommer’s innovative team became highly regarded, nationally and internationally.

The effect of Jean’s work with the young people were so highly valued that parents of the children asked to have eurythmy classes themselves!

These classes took place in the hospital for many years. Jean’s energy was full of abundance and these developments formed a base for many years of teaching and writing.

It was around this time that Jean met Doreen Hynes - they would later work together for 7 years at Camphill Coleg Elidyr in Wales. Doreen was a devoted student of Jean in London, who played a big role in encouraging Doreen to study Speech with Maisie Jones. Maisie was a childhood friend of Jean, who had gone on to study Speech Formation at Dornach.

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Jean composed songs, wrote nursery rhymes, changed traditional tunes from different countries, changed words, created song cycles for plays, or made compilations for the Advent Garden