The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 6 May 1919, Stuttgart

12. Eurythmy Performance

This performance at 12 noon took place exclusively for the employees and workers of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in the domed hall of the art building in Stuttgart.

What we wish to present to you is a new art, but you must bear in mind that we are at the very beginning with this new art. What it is intended for will become more complete after some time, and it will be able to lead to certain very broad goals. But we can already see from the preliminary stages, which we have in a sense reached, what is meant by this particular art for the future life of humanity. This art, too, is meant to be part of that life of humanity that does not belong to narrowly defined circles, but is intended to serve the whole broad mass of humanity. This art, too, is meant to be part of this future life.

If I wanted to compare what you will see as eurythmy with anything that is currently being cultivated in the world, I could not. To some extent, what is otherwise practiced as a movement art is always only a piece, a part of what you will see here, and what is cultivated here is the attempt to bring together various details of the full human being to create invigorating, healing activity that also unfolds artistically. If I may draw a comparison, I would say that eurythmy strives for something in the soul and spirit, so that the human being really feels like a soul and spiritual being in the process, which has only been striven for in an unspiritual, un-soulful way through gymnastics. Gymnastics moves the human body in accordance with physical laws, and we should have no illusions about it: gymnastics is an art of movement without any actual soul or spiritual element. Here you have an art of movement that also allows the soul and spiritual to shine through in the human movements of the limbs. If I may draw a comparison on the other side, what is offered here could indeed be compared with the art of stage dance. But what is offered in the art of stage dance is also only a one-sided expression of true humanity and artistry, because it starts from external appearances and then translates external appearances into human dance movements.

We are not starting from something superficial here. What you, dear attendees, will see presented here by these people individually and in the relationships between the positions and movements of groups of people – you are essentially doing it yourself all day long. You just don't do it with your externally visible limbs, with arms and legs, but you do it continuously by speaking with the externally invisible organs of your larynx, and you do it with the air that you move through your larynx. One is just not attentive to the way the organs of the larynx and the neighboring organs vibrate, how the palate and lungs are in motion, because one listens while speaking, because one listens to the conversion of the movements into sound. But if you can immerse yourself in what the larynx, lungs, tongue, palate and lips actually do, what the air does when you speak, say: the most artistic movements are carried out by each person when speaking, but especially in artistic speaking, in declamation, and these movements, these artistic movements are similar in their effect to music. So that one can say, however strange it may sound: what we bring as eurythmy is something we have overheard in the mysterious artistic creations that human nature performs in speech. If you see any eurythmist perform, everything you see is laryngeal movement translated into human movement in the group's positions and movements. The whole person and the whole group are simply larynxes; everything becomes a speech organ.

Therefore, on the one hand, we can express musicality, and on the other hand, what is inherent in musicality through the movements of groups of people, rather than through larynx movements as in singing. Therefore, we can also present poetry, artfully formed language, in the movement of individuals and in the movements and positions of groups of people. In eurythmy, each person always expresses what is contained in the individual word or sound. And the warmth of feeling and the content of the soul that permeates our language, especially our poetic language, is expressed by the movements and postures of the groups. And all in pure rhythm. We can express everything through what you will see here. So we transfer to the whole human being that which is most ensouled in the human being, that through which the human being's innermost emotions express themselves outwardly, the human speech organ. In this way we ensoul and spiritualize the human being, bring what is formed in the body into the spirit, so that the human being in eurythmy can feel as a soul, as a spirit in reality.

In recent times, people have forgotten how to relate to true poetic art. You really can't recite or declaim at all today because you always read prose. Here the human being is compelled to know that poetry is more than mere prose, that poetry is formed, shaped language. Therefore, when it is recited – which means you will also hear what you are giving in the movements – it will be rendered through artful speaking, not through prosaic declamation, as you can see everywhere where art is lost in this field. A genuine art must be found again for declamation. This art is being learned right now, when one is compelled to adapt declamation to what man, when he is completely larynx, must express.

So you see, soulless gymnastics is combined with dance, which is only externally animated, to form a single unit. This creates something that is not just for looking at like stage dance, nor mere body movement like gymnastics, but is both, is something new as an art that one can perform as a human being by making oneself healthy and strong from the spiritual-soul, which gymnastics cannot do because it does not take hold of the whole person.

But you must bear in mind that this is a great work. It wants to serve the life of the future, the future of which I spoke to you recently from a social point of view in your workshop over at your factory. It also wants to serve the liberated human being when it can live sympathetically with him. It will perfect itself, either through us or through others, because it is a right beginning for the ideal of humanity seeking its development in the future.