The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1912–1918

GA 277a — 1 June 1918, Vienna

Address on Eurythmy

The address and the subsequent eurythmy performance took place in the studio of Maria and Alexander Strakosch (XII Vienna, Penzingerstr. 39) at 8 p.m.

My dear friends! I have been told that it might be desirable for me to say a few words about the meaning and purpose of eurythmy.

I can safely say that eurythmy is something that has been brought to us, in a sense, by karma. In our movement, it is always good to try to see whether there is a sign from here or there that this or that should be done. Eurythmy actually came about when one of our members, Mrs. Smits from Düsseldorf, approached me one day a few years ago and asked whether something similar to the art of dance could be created for those who wanted to devote themselves to it. Now, it goes without saying that within our movement, only things that are conceived from our circle of ideas, from our entire direction of endeavor, can be created. And so, first of all, we had to remember that, basically, all the arts, together with all other human spiritual activities, have a common origin. It is certainly true that in times of human development that are entirely within reach, the striving for knowledge, the striving for religion, and the striving for beauty have a single source. It was, in a sense, the turning of the human soul toward the common spiritual, which could be achieved either through human knowledge or through the devotion of the human soul in cultic acts, or it could appear through external sensory reality as a revelation in art.

The arts themselves were only later subject to a certain differentiation. They go back to a kind of primal art. So one can say that within this primal artistry, what then often developed into the non-artistic and anti-artistic, the art of dance, emerged. Now, my dear friends, in our present cultural cycle, we cannot create in the same way that things originally appeared. Any return to earlier expressions of humanity would lead us astray. Today, we must create things entirely from what are actually the developmental impulses, the cultural impulses of humanity in the present.

The question is: How can people today, let's say — and this should not be misunderstood — be set in motion through dance, so that this “setting in motion” is not subject to some kind of arbitrariness, but is the revelation of an inner spiritual law? What has emerged initially — the whole thing is in its infancy and will probably develop further — is that the word, and what applies to the word, also applies in a certain sense to singing, to music in general. It has emerged that the word finds its expression through the lawful movement of the larynx and the organs located in its vicinity. We are not looking merely at the external physical aspect, but at the supersensible basis, the etheric organism. Now, what you know as Goethe's theory of metamorphosis is something comprehensive, if it is thought of comprehensively enough. And if we observe what the human etheric body of the larynx and the neighboring organs does while a person speaks in everyday life, we come across certain etheric movements, but these are brought about in a very peculiar way. They are brought about in such a way that they basically come from the whole human being. Speaking and singing are actually based on the fact that something that the whole etheric body of the human being is supposed to perform is concentrated on the special etheric member of the larynx and its neighboring organs. This is possible because the entire etheric body of the human being localizes its movement, suppresses it, and localizes it solely in the etheric body of the larynx. This makes it possible for the etheric impulses emanating from the astral body and the ego to be converted into movement at this point, so that words become audible and so on. If one observes, that is, if one makes a clairvoyant observation of the movement that underlies this, one can imagine this movement extending over the entire human body, then these movements performed by the etheric body are basically a symbol, a natural reflection of the movement that the human being performs when he speaks.

What we call eurythmy is not arbitrary. We perform it continuously while we speak. The larynx is constantly eurythmizing. We simply transfer what the larynx otherwise performs invisibly to the whole human being in a strictly objective manner and allow the movements that can be performed by the arms or any other organ of the physical body to be performed. We let the physical body follow the movements of the etheric body, so that in eurythmy we are actually doing nothing other than making the whole human being speak. This means that the localized movement of the larynx must be paralyzed when dancing, and the spoken word must go parallel to this. This must be thought of as the simplest underlying principle. Now you know that it is not only the larynx and its neighboring organs that are involved—these movements are imitated in the movement of the whole body—but also our soul, certain soul expressions that we can rightly attribute to the heart and lungs, which permeate the movements underlying speech as an emotional timbre. These are expressed in our eurythmy by setting the whole human being in motion. So if you think of the human being standing still and imagine the movements of the etheric limbs as dance movements – that is, the larynx and its neighboring organs. But if you think of the whole human being in motion, this is the expression of what is otherwise restrained; the movements that his larynx and its neighboring organs do not allow to be carried out, which otherwise permeate speech like a fundamental tone when we speak, we now bring out by dissolving, as it were, what is otherwise restrained. This brings out the movement of the whole human being and, in group dances, expresses the various relationships that the dancers form. Thus, nothing other than what is contained in speech is expressed in what we call eurythmy. It is not something invented, but something that is entirely natural, rooted in the human organism and drawn out of it. As a result, you will find in our eurythmy that anything purely emotional, anything that is merely an immediate outburst of the human soul, anything that wants to be acted out, facial expressions, pantomime, is strictly excluded. Anything that the human being wanted to communicate as an expression of his inner life, as an expression of the word, is excluded. Everything is as strictly regulated as the notes in music are regulated in harmony. What the artist brings to it lies within artistic individuality, just as one person can play a Beethoven sonata in one way and another in another way — but there must be a lawfulness underlying it, as in musical lawfulness.

This must be taken into particular account. If one had to use a specific term today, one could say that eurythmy is, in the strict sense, an expressionist art. It expresses what the restrained accompanying movement of the larynx expresses. The visionary is expressed in vivid movement. We hope that we can bring this to fruition. The matter is in the making. It has only been practiced by us since 1912, and I hope that it can continue.

In the beginning, we sought to let recitation recede completely, to keep it within insignificant limits, so to speak. However, the art of dance, as we conceive it, is truly an expressionist art, while poetry is an impressionist art, and over time it became apparent that two complementary, polar arts result in a complete artistic whole, especially when recitation, as an impressionist art, is placed alongside eurythmy, as an expressionist art, which then together form a whole.

I wanted to preface this with a few words, as perhaps some of my friends in Vienna have wondered how the movements come about. They are something that is seen, a spiritual movement, nothing arbitrary. What appears today as arbitrary dance art should be overcome, and something should be created that is also a new art in this direction, a kind of revelation of the inner laws of spiritual reality that want to reveal themselves on the physical plane.