The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 28 March 1920, Dornach

54. Eurythmy Performance

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words about the presentation we would like to give you. We are attempting to search for a new art form, and a new art form it is, for the simple reason that we are striving to shape this art form out of a very specific source. It is given by people and shown to people on the stage. These movements are performed either by the limbs of the human body moving or by the whole person moving in space or by groups moving and bringing each other into position. All that is sought in this way is not just a collection of random gestures or gestures that are momentarily sought for some kind of emotional feelings or inner experiences of the soul, but everything that occurs in movements is, in the truest sense of the word, a mute language, but a language that is as arbitrary as the language of sound in the spoken or sung word.

First of all, it is important to note how this mute language comes about. I may use the expression that Goethe often used. What comes about is that what occurs in movements comes about through sensory-supersensory observation, through observation that enables the human being to recognize the supersensible in the sensory in terms of its meaning, in terms of its essence. When developing this eurythmic silent language, one must have a sensory-supersensory power of observation for what actually happens when the speech sound comes forth in speaking or singing. We know, of course, how movement comes about, how all the vocal organs are involved in a particular movement and how this movement is then transmitted to the external air. However, when we listen to someone speaking or singing, we pay attention to what we perceive through the sense of hearing, and what is present in terms of movement escapes our perception. If you study it, you would not get anywhere if you only took what is present in terms of movement phenomena, of real movement phenomena, during speaking or singing, but you have to take the movement tendencies. Because the fact that in the larynx and in the other speech organs that come into play when speaking, the vibrating of the sound is directly connected with the external air, means that movements are produced in the quickest way. But all these movements, which quickly represent a vibration, are based on movement tendencies. And these main directions of movement – when making a sound or otherwise when speaking – can now be transferred to the whole human being according to Goethe's principle of metamorphosis.

For Goethe, the whole plant is nothing more than a more intricately designed leaf. There is something in this principle at Goethe that will still have a great significance for the future view of the world, which is still not sufficiently appreciated even by those who deal with Goethe intimately. But what Goethe saw for the forms, that is, let us say, for the whole plant in relation to the whole plant organ, that can now be extended to the activity of the living being, especially of the most perfect living being, the human being.

What is present in the larynx and its neighboring organs in terms of movement impulses can be transferred to people or groups of people, so that when you see movements of individual people or groups of people here, you are really seeing a true reflection of the movement tendencies present in the human vocal organs when speaking or singing. So there is nothing arbitrary about this eurhythmy; on the contrary, everything in it is as little arbitrary as what comes about in harmony and melody in accordance with musical laws.

Just as two pianists playing the same piece only within very specific limits of their individual conception and the piece comes into its own, so too, through the various performances at different places with special persons or groups, only in individual conceptions, within very specific limits of conception, that which is essential comes to the performance, and that is the same. For there is a rhythmic, tactful, full connection also in the succession of movements, which comes about through the fact that the whole is developed regularly according to the principle indicated.

Now, of course, this eurythmic art is only at the beginning of its development, and that is why it is still difficult to find one's way into it today. But this beginning can already be described as a solution to much of what is currently being sought in art in a certain field of artistic work. We see how people who want to be artistically active today are looking for new ways, for example, the expressionist, the impressionist way, how they produce many caricatures in this way. One does not have to look at what can already be produced by us today, but one must look at what is wanted.

We can see, however, that when we are presented with these new artistic endeavors in the fields of painting or sculpture, for example, the artists are still struggling with the fact that the means still seem unusable today, or that the forms of expression cannot be created immediately. It is important to realize that in every such period, when a new direction is being sought in the field of art in particular, there is a tendency to fall back on what must underlie all art, all real art, but what is somewhat lost to artistic creation when the epigone-like, the imitation in art compared to the epochs of genius, comes to the fore too strongly. All real art-making is based on our relationship to the world – whether we are aesthetic connoisseurs or artistic creators – all art-making is based on our perception, on our entire imagination. The conceptual, the ideational actually snatches art away; the ideational actually has a killing, paralyzing effect on everything artistic. If we want to look at nature artistically or recreate nature, for example, we have to turn our attention to nature in such a way that we do not yet progress from contemplation to comprehension in our thinking, but that we remain with our whole devotion to nature in contemplation, but look at the sensual forms so purely, as if they themselves were already thoughts.

For a time, Impressionism tried to do this. In the field of painting, it was not at all able to achieve appropriate forms of artistic expression. As expressionism, it then tried to grasp the other side of avoiding the ideal by simply trying to bring soul experiences that come into their own in a kind of powerfully visionary form in man, but which do not come up to the clear thought that guides everything artistic, by trying to bring such visionary artistic experiences into forms and colors. Those who are easily inclined to philistinism cannot appreciate this beginning. They see only something in what is being attempted, to hold on to inner experiences through colors and forms, and then they say: We cannot distinguish whether it is a matter of hung-out laundry or a ship's sail or something of that sort. The philistine mind refuses to admit that this is not the point. The point is not that you simply hang something on the wall that reflects an inner experience; but as I said, artistic means of expression were not yet available. Therefore, even when one approaches these things with all good will, one is often compelled to say, especially in the face of these attempts at painting today: Yes, it is based on something visionary, it is an illusion, it is an expression, but it is not yet a healthy expression, it is not yet that which the healthy soul can truly experience.

In eurythmy, at least a path has been opened up, albeit in a very imperfect way even today. It involves a different means of expression, in order to become both impressionistic and expressionistic in a different way. We are dealing here with the human being, with the moving human being, and so with something that can be observed by the observer with the senses, something that can be presented in the medium of the senses. But what is being presented, these movements, are not something that merely needs to be looked at, but rather can be observed in a certain way, just as one can listen to speech or sound, to song, and discern something of the soul in it. What the expressionist wants, for example, that the soul he has painted into his forms and form structures is inside them – can easily be achieved when presented in eurythmy. Because this eurythmic art that I have presented is, like human language, the expression of the soul, of the spiritual, everywhere.

And what the Impressionists sought to achieve by capturing the external image directly, before they had arrived at the thought, can also be expressed in eurythmy, because it is not something that is merely formed artificially. Not even the gesture is formed artificially, but the human organism is studied in terms of how it emits something through the natural movement of its arms, through the natural movement of its whole environment, which corresponds to the movement tendencies that are as natural as in the larynx when we speak.

Of course, something like this must be sensed in the right way, as it is given in the eurythmic art form. We must go back to the truly artistic feeling, also, for example, in poetry, which eurythmy should be accompanied by. You will see how it is accompanied today, how poetry on the one hand and music on the other accompany artistic eurythmy performances.

We must also go back to the example of poetry in recitation to what is actually artistic in poetry. In our unartistic times, we have often strayed from an understanding of the artistic in poetry. This artistic quality is found in rhythm, in plasticity, in form. Today, however, we first consider the prosaic aspect and then attach great importance to the fact that the reciter brings out with great feeling precisely those aspects that are not rhythmic or artistic but are in keeping with the meaning. As a result, our present-day art of recitation is a prosaic and not a truly artistic one. What is understood by the art of recitation in the outer life today would not be at all suitable for recitation to eurythmy, to the silent language of eurythmy. Recitation must go back to the old forms of recitation.

We must see a beginning in all these fields, but a beginning that must lead to a certain perfection. We need only remember that the human being must be the most perfect work of art. Goethe says so beautifully: When the human being is placed at the summit of nature, he in turn produces a summit within himself, taking measure, harmony and meaning together and finally rising to the work of art.

Those who place their own human organism at the service of this art of silent speech, of eurythmy, are well aware that everything must be dropped that is expressed only by the individual human being in spoken language, and that they must give themselves over to that which, in essence, nature expresses through the particular human organization itself. So that one can say: When an individual speaks or sings, when an individual engages in mimicry or gestures, there is always something of the individual human subjectivity in it, of human egoism. Here in eurythmy, we are striving for what Goethe regards as the highest summit of artistic revelation, saying: When the healthy nature of man works as a whole, when man in the world feels himself in the world as a great and dignified totality, when harmonious comfort gives him free delight, he will consider nature as having reached its goal and admire the summit of its becoming and being. This is the language of nature itself, not that of the individual human being. It is the language that reveals itself through the movements of eurythmy, the language of nature itself, which can emerge when the whole human being is used as its instrument.

And so, if you have a true artistic sensibility, what can come to light through the art of eurythmy can truly seem like an unraveling of the mysteries of the world. What can be expressed in the moving forms of eurythmy cannot be expressed in ordinary spoken language. What is expressed in the movements of the individual human being on stage, or in the movements of groups of people, or even in their relationship to one another on stage, is thoroughly inspired by the laws of nature.

We can hope that this eurythmic element will continue to develop in a thoroughly beneficial way for the further artistic education of man.

In all this, however, I would ask you to bear in mind what I have said many times before: we ourselves are still thinking, with all modesty, about what we can offer today. We are at the beginning of this eurythmic art. But we also believe that, if time brings us its interest, what we want with this eurythmy will either be developed by ourselves, but probably by others in the course of time, into something that can be presented as a fully fledged, younger art form alongside its older, fully fledged sister arts.