“The Desert” Rondelay Action Game

A rondelay originally was a slow medieval dance performed in a circle, but it also has come to mean an action story/verse done in a circle.  In teaching, this form offers limitless possibilities for creativity in developing movement, rhyme, rhythm and character, for any age.  For the first Waldorf school in Germany, Graf Fritz von Bothmer, the first gym teacher, created a series of rondelays for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades that are practiced still today.  His first rondelay, for 3rd grade begins:

     “We come, we come, from far and wide, a-running and a-leaping!

     Gallop, gallop, and trot trot trot, gallop, gallop, and trot trot trot,

     A-running and a-leaping!

From the periphery of the edges of the room or field, the children run into a circle, joining in and keeping their place without passing or falling behind.  The rondelay continues with images and movements for building a house, to be done neatly in various gestures and patterns with a partner.  I find this rondelay so helpful as an opening rhythmic activity for the class, all year long, offering practice in differentiating movements and changing the spaces we are moving in.  How is a gallop different than a trot, or a run different from a leap?  Can we show this clearly and practice changing ourselves? (Bothmer’s rondelays can be found in his book, Gymnastic Education, published in English by Mercury Press, and available in our online store.)

In my Spacial Dynamics training, we were each challenged to create our own rondelay for 3rd grade.  Here is mine, which has expanded a bit since its origin nearly 20 years ago, with some nice changes of pace and tone, just like the desert itself.  Today, I coached a teacher over the phone through the movements of the characters and gestures. Every time I do this story, I remember my childhood growing up in Palm Springs and walking through the desert to the school bus stop at the base of Mt. San Jacinto, stepping firmly, eyes open wide for snakes (and stickers of all sorts).

The Desert Is A Beautiful Place

The desert is a beautiful place / Of sand, of sun, of sky, of space.

Down the desert path I stride / I keep my eyes open very wide.

To the right, to the left, I turn my head / While the animals scurry for a shady bed.

My jack rabbit friend who hops so swiftly / Over the sands then quickly leaps

Over a tumbleweed… / That rolls on by in the warming breeze.

I step quite quickly upon the ground / To scare any rattlesnakes that may be around.

Freeze! There’s one! I stop and stand / As he slithers sideways across the sand.

A busy fellow is the little packrat. / He picks up this, he picks up that.

Here’s something shiny! He stops to linger, / Doesn’t see the scorpion raise its stinger.

High over its back it arches and strikes! / And the packrat goes down without a fight.

Alert, upright, the mountain lion / Sits poised, watching the silent fire

Of the light as it blazes on the canyon walls. / Silently he listens to the wind’s wild call.

The bobcat paces on the boulders below, / Her lynx’s tail caught in the glow

Of the sun as it fades in purple and red. / The hunting owl soars silently over my head.

Up the desert path I stride / Stepping firmly, eyes open wide.

To the right, to the left, I look around / As the night creatures crawl from their holes in the ground.

In darkness I return to my clean warm house. / I think of my friends, the rabbit and mouse,

And the snakes and the lizards and scorpions all, / The cougar and bobcat and the coyote’s call.

The desert is a beautiful place / Of sand, of sun, of sky, of space.

© Valerie Baadh Garrett 1993