The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 5 April 1919, Dornach

11. Eurythmy Performance

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say just a few words in advance of our eurythmy presentation. It seems necessary to me, because our presentation cannot yet claim a certain perfection. It is an experiment, yes, I might even say it is the very first germ of an experiment. If I did not say that, it would be easy to believe that we wanted our eurythmy to compete with neighboring arts, all kinds of pantomime or dance arts, which today are highly developed to a high degree of perfection. We are fully aware that we cannot offer anything as perfect as these neighboring arts on the basis of the particular art form that is to be presented here, and we do not for a moment imagine that we are competing with these neighboring arts in any way. But it is not at all a matter of offering something the same or similar to these arts, but rather of setting something of our own, something special, that, like basically everything that is cultivated here in this Goetheanum, stands on the ground of Goethe's world view, in this case on the ground of Goethe's view of art. Not as if we wanted to take what Goethe did and simply apply it to our time, but rather as we feel that Goetheanism must be transformed according to the feelings, according to the artistic and spiritual views of the present, of the modern age.

If I am to begin by pointing out how this art form, which we call eurythmy, actually came about, I do not want to say anything about the aesthetic moment at first; that must arise from direct observation. However, it may perhaps be important to point out how this particular art form was found. And here I may point out something that at first seems theoretical but is deeply rooted in Goethe's magnificent view of nature, which then metamorphosed into his comprehensive view of art. I would like to point out what is called the Goethean theory of metamorphosis, which - translated into artistic perception - can be perceived throughout our entire structure.

To put it briefly, Goethe saw every single plant leaf as a whole plant, and also saw the individual colored petal as a whole plant. He imagined the metamorphic development of every single leaf as a whole plant, but also the whole plant as nothing more than a complex leaf.

This Goethean view can be applied to all living things, especially to the most comprehensive living thing, to the human being itself. Here in eurythmy, this view of nature, translated into art, is applied not only to the shaping of form but also to movement. The aim was to intuitively seek out the special intentions, the special predispositions, the movement seeds in the human larynx and its neighboring organs when the human being moves into artistic, poetic or musical, song-like production of the sound. In doing so, the human being's attention turns primarily to the audible. And only someone who would see, perhaps through artificial means, how the air mass, stimulated by the movement of the larynx and its neighboring organs, is set into rhythmic vibrations when a person speaks artistically or makes himself heard in song, only someone who would see this would see how a whole world arises out of the individual organ complex of the human being, how the whole human being reveals himself. Just as the individual leaf of a plant is reflected in the whole plant in a more complicated way, so can one reshape what one perceives intuitively, supersensibly, while forming artistic sounds. This can be transformed into movement and shaped by the whole person. The whole person can become a larynx. Then, in the whole person, what is expressed in the individual larynx is in turn effective as inner, significant, living tendencies. Goethe once said so beautifully: Art is based on a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which would never be perceived without it. And in yet another of his words, he describes this subjectively as the same, when he says: He to whom nature reveals her secret feels a certain longing for her best interpreter, art.

The truth of these words can be felt when one implements what is otherwise supersensible and invisible in human speech and singing when it is expressed in the movement of the human organism as a whole. What you see here on the stage is partly carried out in the transformation of the movement of the individual human being, but also of groups of people, in such a way that the visible expression of the human larynx is presented through the whole human being. Eurythmy should be a visible speech. Indeed, art and artistic feeling must underlie the whole development of eurythmy. What you will see here has not been derived from dry theory or science, but from Goethe's concept of nature and art, directly translated into feeling. What the individual person presents, in his or her postures and movements, is what is otherwise revealed in the larynx as a predisposition for movement in artistic speech and song. What we present in groups, in the mutual relationship of one person to another in the groups, in the movements of the groups, that is more what then glows through the language as feeling, as inner soul mood, as soul warmth. This is what is present in artistic speech formation as rhyme, as rhythm, as various assonance and so on. Everything that otherwise only passes into the tonal element, into the audible, can be expressively expressed in style through a development and revelation of the whole human being and of groups of people. Stylistically, based on Goethe's words, on the deepest foundations of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as it is permitted to us to present it in tangible and visible forms - that is what is attempted here, to feel this highest revelation of the world, this microcosm, the human being, in what lies within him, to present it visibly, like a large larynx.

Of course, in saying this, I am saying nothing other than how this art form came about: just as nature creates within the human being that which can become art – in poetry, in musical song – so that which lies within the whole human being can become art. But all that I have said is only intended to express the origin. The artistic must be felt in direct perception. And we are convinced that it can be felt.

So we will endeavor, on the one hand, to bring the sound to hearing through recitation or declamation or through music, and on the other hand, to bring the same thing that can be heard to vision through eurythmy.

Dear attendees, even with regard to our eurythmic art form, recitation brings us into conflict with today's views. The younger people of today have no longer experienced the old art of recitation, even in its decadent form, which was still present in the 1970s and 1980s. One need only think of how Goethe rehearsed his Iphigenia in Weimar with the baton. Today, for the most part, people are much more interested in the recitation itself, which takes into account the formal, the actual artistic, that has nothing to do with the content of the words, and not so much in the prose that is recited, from which the content, nuances and the like emerge. We must look to shape the recitation here, which is to come together with eurythmy to form a Gesamtkunstwerk, by going back – just as our art of dance must also go back to the sacramental dance of antiquity in many ways – we must go back go back to older forms of recitation that are less understood today, but which can be understood again if something develops from the declining art culture of the 19th century that in turn contains elementary spiritual, super-sensible elements. To conclude this brief introduction with a quotation from Goethe, let me express something that Goethe says, so to speak, about his view of nature and his view of art in the beautiful book about Winckelmann: When man is placed at the summit of nature, he in turn feels like a summit, in that he summarizes the whole of nature; he seeks out symmetry, harmony, order and finally rises to the production of a work of art in which the spirit of the world becomes aware of itself. - One feels this in particular when one would like to transform the whole human being into a work of art, as it is to be done here through eurythmy.

But with all this, I ask you, dear attendees, to consider what we have undertaken here as an attempt to arrive at some new art form, as a beginning. We ourselves think very modestly about what eurythmy is here for the time being; but we believe, on the other hand, that something perfect can really come out of this weak beginning. Please take what is presented here in this spirit. We are convinced that eurythmy, either through us or, if we are prevented from doing so, through others, can develop from this modest beginning, which we are only able to present today, into an independent art form that can stand fully equal with the other arts.