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Purpose – Music class should function as a class that triggers joy and a platform for students to express their feelings. Based on observation, there are music teachers who teach singing and playing musical instruments traditionally based on teacher-centered approach. This has caused music classes to become passive and dull, with unexcited students that would cause them to be out of focus in the class. The purpose of this research is to investigate the application of rhythmic movements, using one of the components from Dalcroze’s Eurhythmics as an activity to develop active and fun music classes, hence to improve students’ music performance skills. Methodology – The study was carried out within the framework of a ten-week action-research design involving 35 primary school students at Putrajaya, Malaysia. Data collection was through group observation on students’ musical behaviours. Researchers also conducted an in-depth interview with rhythmic movement experts. Findings – Result shows that there is a significant changing of musical behaviours among primary students from week 8 to week 10. Experts agreed that rhythmic movement can create a meaningful music class with an active participation by students. There are three rhythmic procedures recommended by the experts to strengthen a music class pedagogy. Significance – Learning music through movements has turned music class into active and fun. Rhythmic movement activity makes this intention to become more meaningful. The study helps students to explore music through movements while they have the chance to play, communicate to each other, learn through observation and express their creativity in their own way. This intervention helps students to grasp almost all the music concepts while doing activities. This study also provides ideas for teachers to integrate rhythmic movements in music instructional process. Keywords: Dalcroze Eurhythmics, rhythmic movement, music education, qualitative, primary students, singing, playing percussion.

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Music coordination skill is very important in music education and performance. A problem that has been identified is that children are unable to sing and play traditional percussion (kompang) simultaneously during school music performance. It appears that the necessary skill is barely coached with the current teaching methods used by primary school teachers. This not only affects performance quality but also necessitates more hours of training despite students being talented in singing or playing musical instruments. The purpose of this study is to apply the Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach to improve musical coordination skill among primary school students. Hence, a quasi-experimental design was used to collect data from two groups of 9-year-old students in a Malaysian primary school, 35 in the experiment group and 35 in the control group. The pre-test and post-test data consist of mean value, standard deviation, percentage, and T-test analysis. The instrument used for data collection is a Practical Music Test. The result of the research shows that: (1) there is a significant difference between pretest and post-test scores in the experiment group, (2) there is significant difference in achievement score post-test between the control and experiment group, and (3) there is a significant difference between the achievement scores of the control and experiment groups. The present study has proven music coordination skill has potential to be developed as a part of music education in primary school. The findings also reveal that the Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach is an appropriate intervention.

This article looks into the evolution of the diasporic Chinese lion dance in Malaysia. More importantly, it examines how this traditional art genre stands out among the many other forms that have withstood extinction. Although once regarded as foreign to the national culture in Malaysia due to its identity as a Chinese folk art, it was first threatened, but not abandoned. Malaysia eventually responded by merging the northern and southern lion styles and developing a World Lion Dance Championship. This article will elaborate on the origin of the lion dance, and examine changes that may be factors in its sustainability. More importantly, the article examines the political concept of 1Malaysia introduced by Prime Minister Dato' Sri Haji Mohammad Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak in 2008 that has brought a new model to the lion dance in aiming for national unity. Kun Seng Keng Dragon and Lion Dance Troupe's practice exemplifies this phenomenon.