The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1912–1918

GA 277a — Düsseldorf

Notes on the Development of Eurythmy (Düsseldorf, autumn 1912)

Lory Maier-Smits, Notes from 1965

On the evening of September 24, 1912, the last of the ten lectures in the series “The Gospel of Mark” was given, and the very next day we drove home, even though Rudolf Steiner still had two public lectures to give in Basel. Following these last lectures, during his time in Basel, he also visited Dornach for the first time. [...] Thus, the first teachings on the “art of the word” were given very close to the place where “the house of the word” was built and designed.

But we were eager to finally put into practice, into reality, everything we had experienced in the past weeks as if in a premonition. So we drove home early in the morning on September 25. “Home” was a garden city called Haus Meer (now Meerbusch), between Düsseldorf and Krefeld, a distinctly Lower Rhine landscape with dams, meadows, and a wide horizon. We didn't arrive until evening, but by then we already had a clear plan of how we wanted to tackle the work. Even for the “preliminary work,” the largest room in our house, the obligatory salon, had been cleared out except for the piano, because in order to ‘dance’ around “Barbara sat straight on the slope,” to try out the “round dances” and to “stomp” the alliterations, we needed space, and I simply wrote my writing exercises large and clearly on the floor with chalk. The students, or “co-workers,” three younger sisters of mine and a boy whom Dr. Steiner had sent to us to be educated, and for “whose somewhat weak-willed nature these lessons are particularly important,” were more or less enthusiastic and ready to join in the work. I would not have been able to work out the group dances without these “colleagues” (aged 14 down to 8). But step by step, one after the other in the order Rudolf Steiner had given, the whole program was laid out.

Of course, this joint work could only take place in the late afternoon, when all schoolwork had been done. In the morning, I worked on my own and tried as best I could to “learn to feel” what “a bent hand,” “every cross,” every stretch, etc. meant to me. But I always began with the IAO that Rudolf Steiner had given in Munich, and it was precisely from my efforts to achieve these three “postures” that my first concrete sound sensations arose. Incidentally, when Rudolf Steiner gave these three pillar experiences in Munich, he had already said that one should try to experience the sounds in color! In Bottmingen, he spoke of this again and asked somewhat doubtfully whether I could imagine anything at all under this concept. I told him proudly that I could and that I had found that i was green! “Well,” he said with a laugh, “how did you do that?” “I imagined a spectrum very intensely and then let the ‘i’ sound into it. Then all the other colors disappeared and only ‘green’ spread out.” He neither affirmed nor denied this “green,” but only said that I should keep directing my attention in this direction of colorfulness.

My mother and I had decided from the outset to proceed with the work, especially the group work, in the order specified by Rudolf Steiner. In addition to my efforts to slowly “learn” a feeling for the sound seats and to experience them within myself, I also spent the mornings preparing what we wanted to work on in the afternoons. I looked for poems with distinct rhythms, searched for music that was needed for individual exercises, and practiced what was planned thoroughly so that I could demonstrate it more and more skillfully and naturally. My mother had a firm grip on this afternoon work. She read for us and played the piano. We weren't entirely dependent on existing music; a young friend who was studying music willingly composed “Ballen und Spreizen” (Balls and Spreads) for us, and we also created some rhythms to music and, of course, the stick exercise, for which we really needed wooden sticks wrapped in copper wire. It was worked out particularly intensively, if only because of the abundance of “misbehavior in physical posture.” Standing, walking, also two facing each other, one walking forward, the other backward. This looked really beautiful, almost like a “Corybantic dance,” and one could subject the precision of one's own movements to control, but also to mutual, naturally as inconspicuous as possible, correction, and this stimulation of one's own control always proved to be particularly fruitful and healing. Our staff exercise was also performed with energetic strides, walking quickly, and finally with light running steps accompanying the evenly calm arm movements. One should first take a strong step for each arm movement, then two slightly faster steps, and then four running steps — Rudolf Steiner had already suggested this in Bottmingen. Slowly, attempts were also made to structure the exercise in iambic or anapaestic meter.

I would like to include here a piece of advice that Rudolf Steiner gave me in Stuttgart in 1919, because it may be valuable to some eurythmists. When Dr. and Mrs. Steiner stayed in Stuttgart for a long time during the threefold social order period—which had also been our place of residence since 1917—a large group of eurythmists practiced very intensively every day with Mrs. Marie Steiner-von Sivers. Our forms became larger and more lively, and the arm movements became more “animated” consonants became faster and more varied, my heart sometimes caused me some concern. Finally, I asked Dr. Steiner if I was perhaps doing something wrong, for example, breathing incorrectly. He said that everything was fine in that regard, but that I, like everyone else in Germany, was malnourished. “The food in Germany simply doesn't provide any energy anymore, no matter what you eat. But if you want to do something to strengthen your breathing, try to increase your arm movements in a ratio of one to two and then four, always doubling them, while maintaining a steady, calm breath.” When I had followed this advice for a long time, for example, first doing one l-movement per breath, then two l-movements per breath, then four l-movements, and then going back to one l-movement, and, beyond practicing it, I was now “doing” it, as a young and otherwise healthy person at the time, I felt a “calming legato” despite the acceleration, as in the last stick exercise described.

During our group work together at “Haus Meer” at that time, my mother attached great importance to continuing to practice and “do” everything that had been established up to that point every day. Only then was a small step forward taken. Rudolf Steiner gave the same advice to Annemarie Donath-Dubach when, after returning from Haus Meer to Berlin in the summer of 1913, she asked Rudolf Steiner how she could now continue practicing most fruitfully after an initial lengthy introduction to the Dionysian part of eurythmy entrusted to me in Bottmingen. He told her that she should work in such a way that she did every movement and every form at least once every two to three days, and also many poems! Now that the field has become so much more extensive, if students were encouraged to always work on one Dionysian poem and one Apollonian poem, they would be able to keep all the possibilities offered by eurythmy alive and ever-present within themselves. These tasks would have to be done alongside the group work.

Once a week in those early days, however, I also had adult students! Some of our theosophical friends participated very actively with their hands and feet in the creation of the new art, while others came regularly at certain intervals and wanted to see new things, but also progress in what was already known, with loving and artistic interest. Since we otherwise only practiced, the conversations that followed were a real gain, a tangible encouragement and help.

Of course, the small group also worked on vocal exercises in the afternoons. This, together with my morning practice of individual sounds and sound combinations, both vowel and consonant, as Dr. Steiner had instructed me, namely to produce the sounds “almost simultaneously,” finally allowed me to tackle the task I had set myself in Basel—the two Goethe poems: “Meeresstille” (Calm Sea) and “Glückliche Fahrt” (Happy Voyage). Meeresstille is purely vocal, it is almost a trance state, to be understood only as images of a completely inner, spiritual state, so... only vowels. But I was to make Glückliche Fahrt consonantal, as it depicts the real outside world.

The simplest forms, for “Meeresstille” only those that express the feeling soul through the interplay of straight and curved lines (which, through the interaction of straight and curved lines, provide a means of expression for “feeling”), were determined and rhythmically paced with the previously practiced sounds. It was, of course, very, very simple, and yet there were unforeseen difficulties! For example, how was I supposed to do the ü in the line “und bekümmert sieht der Schiffer” (and the sailor looks sad)? There was no one around to “dance past each other”! So I had to find an arm movement that expressed something adequate! And I had to find it on my own, because Rudolf Steiner was far away and could not be asked. And it was found after concentrating long and often on movement and dynamics “in one's own throat” and intoning u ü u ü. The result was really amazingly correct, as were the attempts to find an arm movement for ö. Both were accepted quite naturally by Rudolf Steiner in April 1913, but in 1924 he added certain refinements. In the second poem, which was to be performed consonantly, several words with sch appeared towards the end. A clear s movement was not satisfactory, especially in the penultimate line: “I can already see the land!” where sch and s are so close together. The sch could not be formed as clearly as the s. It had to be broader, fuller, but also less clear, more blurred, and it became so. The arms found the movement almost by themselves. And in the forms, more crooked shapes, expressing will, appeared as a matter of course.

Incidentally, “Glückliche Fahrt” was terribly difficult! There was so much to master! The r had to be worked into the rhythm, and then came “zerreißen” (tear) as the first word. So a short sound ending in r and a long sound beginning with it! And only with v, b, and s—and as we did initially—should one “move together with an object or give it form.” Without the glass buttons, which I had secretly sewn onto the bottom of the “veil stole,” just as I had turned the entire stole so that it hung over the shoulders, it would never have worked! It just wasn't there when you needed it. And words like “ängstlich” (anxious) with four consonants on one length and “säuseln” (to whisper) with three on one shortness! It was terribly difficult, and I fear that in the beginning no muse could have endured even listening from afar. I learned and experienced a lot from this first consonantal poem, including discouragement and depression. But also help! When I couldn't go on any longer, I suddenly heard the expectant sound in Rudolf Steiner's voice again, saw the gaze looking into the distance as clearly as I had seen it in Bottmingen: “You will see how beautiful it will be, what a differentiated experience it expresses!” Then all my enthusiasm returned and, with renewed courage, I even attempted the most difficult passage: “The boatman stirs, quickly! Quickly!”