Pamela Matt

My interest in the work of Mabel Elsworth Todd began indirectly in the 1960’s at the University of Illinois. At that time, I was privileged to be among a small group of undergraduate dance majors who were exposed to an approach to dance education that focused on improvisation with body imagery. Marsha Paludan and Joan Skinner coordinated this educational experiment and together they shaped the beginnings of a method that eventually became known as “release technique.” Their teaching ideas were derived from a wide variety of sources and the students learned that the writings of Mabel Todd and Lulu Sweigard contained relevant information on the body and the use of imagery.

In the course of my graduate work in dance in the early 1970’s, I became acquainted with Dr. Laura Huelster, the director of the University of Illinois graduate program in physical education and a former student of Dr. Sweigard. Dr. Huelster shared her extensive collection of articles by Sweigard with me and provided personal insights into the many challenges of her teacher’s career. Dr. Huelster was delighted when I met Barbara Clark, another protégé of Todd, and began assisting her with the writing of the third of her “body alignment manuals.”

The next several years of association with Miss Clark, during and after my graduate studies in Dance at the University of Illinois, provided the foundation for my knowledge of Todd’s educational system. Our weekly lessons centered on the study of the anatomical imagery she was developing for her writing and were always enriched by her reminiscences of her childhood and long association with Mabel Todd. Through Clark I met André Bernard and Joanne Emmons, former students of hers who had become teachers of her approach in New York City. They graciously extended opportunities for me to learn more about their teaching throughout the 1970s and 80s.

Before my family moved to Arizona, Miss Clark transferred the copyrights for her manuals into a trust for which my husband and I were named as trustees. The language of the trust directed us to devote all proceeds from the sales of her material to, “promoting the works of BARBARA CLARK relating to body posture and movement.” After Clark passed away in 1982, writing her life story and preparing her writings for publication seemed an ideal way to honor the trust directive. I completed the first edition of the book, A Kinesthetic Legacy: The Life and Works of Barbara Clark, in 1993.

In my faculty appointment in the Department of Dance at Arizona State University, I taught introductory courses in “ideokinesis” annually from 1979 until 2004. As I developed another teaching area in dance kinesiology, I became even more cognizant of the genius of Todd, Clark and Sweigard and the value of their ideas for the advancement of “wellness” in our college dance community.

Toward the end of my academic teaching career, the idea of creating an educational website on “ideokinesis” arose in response to complaints from students that information on the discipline was not yet available on the web. Students also found library searches to be frustrating because the lack of a consistent name for the field impeded the systematic classification of its articles and texts. And thus, I came to agree that a website devoted to the dissemination of introductory information on the approach could be quite useful. The website www.ideokinesis.com was launched in 2005 as a collection of essays, contributed by various teachers and scholars in the discipline, along with an extensive bibliography.

By 2015, it had become clear that the software for the original website had become obsolete. The essays and bibliography were updated and incorporated into the new web-based Thinking Body Institute. A new initiative, developing an archive consisting of materials from the lives and careers of Mabel Todd, Barbara Clark, Lulu Sweigard and André Bernard, enlarged my understanding of the field immeasurably.

In 2015, the unforeseen contribution of a curriculum written by Barbara Clark for lessons that Bernard taught in an acting studio in New York, constituted the proverbial missing piece in my understanding of Clark’s teaching. Thus, I was compelled to develop a revised edition of A Kinesthetic Legacy, which was published in 2020. Since then, my continuing research into the history, theory and educational methodology of the field defined the purview of another book on Todd’s educational premise that will become available soon. More information on A Procedure of Thinking: The Work of Mabel Elsworth Todd is available on this website.

Since the launch of www.ideokinesis.com, countless visitors from across the globe have expressed their appreciation for the information we have made available. I look forward to the possibility that the resources and services of the Thinking Body Institute will continue to broaden understanding of Todd’s work and open new creative avenues for collaboration and exchange among the students, teachers and scholars of her educational approach.

—Pamela Matt (Revised 2024)

A Kinesthetic Legacy: The Life and Works of Barbara Clark by Pamela Matt

Matt’s revised edition of A Kinesthetic Legacy is available at https://tbi-media.org/product/a-kinesthetic-legacy/.

Bibliography for Pamela Matt

Matt, P. Mabel Elsworth Todd and Barbara Clark – Principles, Practice and the Import for Dance. Unpublished Masters of Art Thesis. Urbana-Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois, 1973.

——— “Don’t ‘Stand Up Straight’ – Use Your Imagination.” In S.W. Stinson (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1991 Dance and the Child: International. Salt Lake City, UT University of Utah. 1991, 232-241.

——— “Ideokinesis – Integrating the Science and Somatics of Dance.” Kinesiology and Medicine for Dance. 14 (1): 68-77, Fall/Winter 1991-92.

——— A Kinesthetic Legacy: The Life and Works of Barbara Clark. Revised Edition. Scottsdale, AZ: TBI Media, 2020. https://tbi-media.org/product/a-kinesthetic-legacy/

———“The Nature of Ideokinesis and its Value for Dancers.” In S. Fitt Dance Kinesiology. Second Edition. New York, NY: Schirmer Books. 1996, 335-341.

——— “Critical Thinking in Dance Science Education,” Journal of Dance Education 3(4): 121-30, 2003.

——— Review of “Teaching Dancing with Ideokinetic Principles, by Drid Williams,” JASHM Volume 18 No. 1 University of Illinois Press at Urbana Champaign, 2012.