Margaret H'Doubler

Margaret Newell H'Doubler (April 26, 1889 – March 26, 1982) was an American dance educator, who is known for creating the first dance major at the University of Wisconsin. Her dance pedagogy was a blend of expressing emotions and scientific description. She used her knowledge about the body to help create movement to express what the dancers were feeling. She wrote five books about her pedagogy and about the importance of dance in education. Among H'Doubler's students was Anna Halprin, a post-modern dance pioneer.

Early life Margaret Newell H'Doubler was born April 26, 1889, in Beloit, Kansas, to Sarah Emerson Todd and Charles Wright H'Doubler. The family name of H'Doubler is a contraction of Hougen-Doubler.

She attended the University of Wisconsin to major in biology and minor in philosophy. In 1910, she graduated and was given a job as an assistant instructor teaching basketball, baseball, and swimming. These courses were under the newly established Department of Physical Education for Women.

In May 1916, H'Doubler was encouraged by department head Blanche Trilling to take a one-year leave from UW-Madison to attend Columbia University Teachers College for graduate work in philosophy and aesthetics . After struggling to find a dance form she enjoyed, she met the music teacher, Alys Bentley. Bentley had her students move in relation to music while lying on the floor. Through this, H'Doubler came to discover a lasting fascination in how students could find their own movement with the help of the relative gravitational freedom of floorwork.

Dance pedagogy

H'Doubler began teaching dance in the summer of 1917. She described dance as an art and science which formed her foundation. H'Doubler highlights the teacher's ability to inspire confidence in students so they will not be afraid of what they will reveal when expressing their own feelings through dance. In this book she includes her principles of composition: Climax, Transition, Balance, Sequence, Repetition, Harmony, Variety and Contrast.

In 1918 H'Doubler founded a group of dancers called Orchesis, which is Greek for expressive gesture. One of the early members and lopngtime supporters of Orchesis at Wisconsin was dancer and choreographer Berta Ochsner. The University of Wisconsin opened Lathrop Hall in 1921, which was a studio devoted to dance. This was also the first university to develop dance courses. In 1926, she collaborated with Dean Sellery and the faculty of the School of Education to develop the first curriculum establishing dance as a major.

Other H'Doubler's grand niece and namesake is the screenwriter Margaret Nagle.