Eurythmy Performance

GA 260a — 20 April 1924, Dornach

At Easter 1924, the words of the foundation stone laying ceremony (“Grundsteinspruch,” first three verses) were performed eurythmically for the first time. Two internal performances were held on Easter Sunday and Easter Tuesday. On Easter Sunday and Easter Monday (April 20 and 21), there were also public eurythmy performances, announced in the newspapers, which took place at 5 p.m. each day.

From: “The School of Spiritual Science” (“What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society,” April 27, 1924) GA 37 In a eurythmy performance for the members of the Anthroposophical Society, we wanted to show how the impulses that arose at the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum can develop further with a certain necessity. The new impulse that this conference sought to bring into anthroposophical work must also be reflected in the fact that our events do not merely reflect what may have arisen in the moment, but that what has been worked out in the past continues to unfold in subsequent events. The sayings with which the spiritual foundation stone was laid in the hearts of the members of the Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference were revived in eurythmic art at this Easter Conference. In connection with them, spiritually inspired, heartfelt, soul-warming poems by Albert Steffen were eurythmized, pouring a festive mood over this conference. Further elements, in keeping with the Easter spirit, entwined themselves around the content of the eurythmic performance. We thus had an Easter celebration that fully resonated with our Christmas conference, which was so significant for the Society.

Draft announcement and newspaper advertisement for the performances in Dornach, April 20 and 21, 1924

The following draft announcement is partly written in Max Schuurman's handwriting (shown in italics in the transcription). Schuurman's notes in pencil in the margins, which were keywords for Rudolf Steiner's lectures, are not transcribed here.

Program for the internal performances in Dornach, April 20 and 22, 1924

The sayings from Rudolf Steiner's “Laying of the Foundation Stone”
Air in D major by J. S. Bach
“Du hebst die Hände” (You raise your hands) by Albert Steffen
“Für meine Mutter” (For my mother) by Albert Steffen
Prelude in F minor by J. S. Bach
“Christus in mir” (Christ in me) by Albert Steffen
Andante teneramente in F minor by Johann Ernst Galliard
Minuet based on the song “Honesty lasts longest” by A.G. Rosenberg
“Like the flowers” by Albert Steffen
“Lies the mere earthly body” by Albert Steffen
Largo in B-flat major, Op. 2,8 by G. F. Handel
“Vermächtnis” (Legacy) by Robert Hamerling
Prelude by Pugnani-Kreisler

My dear friends! We would now like to present a eurythmic performance that is intended to reflect the feelings and emotions you may have towards the first major event to take place here after the Christmas conference at the Goetheanum.

The essence of the inner course of our anthroposophical movement must consist in the future in things really developing. So that, unlike before, progress is not repeatedly interrupted, so that one works only in fragments, so to speak, but rather, as in a living organism, the later must develop out of the earlier. However, there must be an understanding of this among the membership. And with today's eurythmy performance, we would like to offer something that can, in a certain sense, be called a continuation of what was inaugurated at the Christmas Conference.

That is why this morning's eurythmy performance had to be separated from what will be presented to the public on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday as eurythmy performances in the afternoon. Today's eurythmy performance is, in the most eminent sense, something that is integrated into the anthroposophical movement itself. And so, at the beginning, the words of wisdom that accompanied our soulful and heartfelt laying of the foundation stone for the Anthroposophical Society at that time should be expressed in eurythmy for the first time today.

Such things must always be understood in the right way. Until now, all things of this kind have been taken far too much in a theoretical sense, so much so that people have failed to see how it simply means something not only that such things as words of wisdom exist, but that they run through the anthroposophical movement as a living force and actually give it impetus. But if this is to happen, we must look not only at the content of such words, but at the real fact of how such words run through the anthroposophical movement. So for the Goetheanum today, the second step in the development of these words is at first glance.

That is what I wanted to say today in the eurythmy performance specially included in this year's program as a kind of welcome to the anthroposophical friends who have come here today.