The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 18 April 1920, Dornach

60. Eurythmy Performance

Dear attendees,

Now, with eurythmy, something is to be created that - like everything here with us - is born out of a truly Goethean worldview and artistic attitude, out of real Goetheanism. I need only point to a single word used by Goethe, and it is the one word that, I would say, characterizes the whole essence of artistic creation and artistic urge. It is the concept, the word sensual-supersensible [contemplation]. Art must certainly strive to work through the sense image or through the audible sense, and not only must that which is directly sensuous work in art, but the supersensuous must one day speak through the sense, hence Goethe's word for everything artistic can be used: “sensual-supernatural”. The source of the sensual and the supersensible is what this eurythmic art seeks to rediscover in its originality, and in the following way: you will see on the stage how the individual performers express movements of their limbs, how movements are performed by the whole person, how movements are performed by groups of people. These movements could very easily be mistaken for arbitrary gestures, for an arbitrary mimicry that has been invented in addition to what is encountered musically on the one hand and rhetorically on the other. But there is nothing arbitrary in our eurythmic art. It has really come about through careful study of human speech and singing itself. To make it clear how people do this, I would like to refer to Goethe's theory of metamorphosis, the principle by which Goethe dared to bring something into the science of the living, into the knowledge of the living, whereby one can really come closer to understanding it. Despite all efforts, Goethe's theory of metamorphosis is still far too little appreciated today, even in scholarly and artistic circles. It looks simple, but there is a lot in the impulse that Goethe describes, when he says: If I look at a plant, then every single leaf, whether it sits [in a simpler form] deep down on the stem or sits in a complicated way on a normal part of the stem, is thought to have emerged directly from the other through a metamorphosis. amorphous, to think that each individual leaf, whether it is [of a simpler form] and sits low down on the stem or is intricately arranged at a normal point on the stem, has emerged directly from the other, but also that the colored petal or even the stamen and pistil are only metamorphosed, transformed leaves and the whole plant is a complete [leaf], just as each individual leaf is a simplified whole plant.

But this is not the only way in which we can perceive the form of living things; we can also perceive the [movement] of living things in this way.

When a person speaks, their larynx and the neighboring organs of the larynx move.

You all know that by speaking, I transmit the movement that the larynx performs to the air, and it is precisely this moving air that transmits my sounds to you. If you look at this movement, however, you see small quivering movements; you do not pay attention to what is actually going on in the larynx and neighboring organs because, when speaking or singing, you turn your attention to what you hear. But someone who has developed an intuitive sense for sensory and supersensory perception can use a certain intuition to enter not into the small tremors, but into the movement tendencies of the larynx and the other speech organs. These can then be transferred to the movement of the whole person and of groups of people, so that you can, as it were, move the whole person and move groups of people in such a way that the larynx and [the other speech organs] move when speaking. This is attempted, avoiding all arbitrariness. In a lawful way, the whole human being is attempted to become the larynx on the stage, so that a kind of silent language, consisting of movement or moving sculpture, will stand before you.

Therefore, there is no arbitrariness to be found in such a representation, but rather, when two or three people at completely different times and in completely different places perform the same eurythmy, the different interpretations are unavoidable, just as when two pianists play the same sonata at two different places or at different times. In eurythmy, everything is built up in accordance with inner laws, like a series of successive movements of music in motion: just as the musical lives in the laws of melody and harmony, so this mute language expresses itself fully and lives in the moving forms. Of course, today we have to accompany what is being presented eurythmically – at least for a time – although we also present silent forms that one only has to feel. We have to do it accompanied by recitation and by the musical element. But these are only different expressive powers of one and the same thing. Therefore, you will particularly appreciate, when reciting, how we have to go back to the good old forms of recitation here, which have more or less already been lost to an unartistic world like ours. I would like to remind you of this, which is an indication of what is actually artistic in poetry. It is not what the literal text says. For example, Goethe himself rehearsed his “Iphigenia” with a baton, like a conductor.

Not on what one particularly looks for today when reciting, when /unleserliches Wort] declaiming, that the prose content comes out with the so-called correct internal emphasis, but that rhythm, tact, that the formal impression, that the, so the actual artistic, comes out in the correct manner. The age of romanticism, when, for example, Rückert and his friends devoted themselves to poetry, this time had much more artistic sensibility for [many] than today. People would sit together and also listen to poems in languages they didn't understand; even if it sounds paradoxical to people today, they actually took pleasure in the tone, the sound, the vivid imagery and the musicality – that is, in the actual artistic quality of the poetry. And Schiller always had a kind of general melody in his soul first, only then did he grasp the words, at least in the case of a large number of his important poems. Today, the literal, the prose content, is regarded as the most essential thing in poetry. In this case, we do not have to strive for the intellectual element to be expressed through our silent language of eurythmy; in the accompanying recitation, we listeners only have to grasp the rhythmic, the formative, the pictorial. Therefore, the art of recitation itself will have to undergo a reform by acting as a companion to the eurythmic.

You will see various units of eurhythmicized [illegible word]. I would like to draw particular attention to the fact that today's performance attempts to present a scene from Goethe, the first scene of the second part of Goethe's “Faust”. While we have otherwise shown lyrical or epic representations, [...] [illegible word] we venture to present art dramatically. Now, I think that is something that I have not yet succeeded in doing, that eurythmic forms still arise that are suitable for the actual dramatic structure, for dramatic composition. The eurythmic art is just at the beginning - it will be perfected over time.

But we have repeatedly tried with Goethe's “Faust” to use what we already have in eurythmy in such a way that where the poetry touches on the inner law of development, where the spiritual-supersensory in a dramatic poetry, in any drama, appears, we call on eurythmy for help. All scenes that take place, I might say, in the physical world, we have them presented like other scenes in the theater, but what points to the supersensible world is particularly suited to eurythmic presentation. You will see this in this first picture from the second part of Goethe's “Faust”. It is the one scene in which Goethe wanted to express himself by leading from the sensual into the supersensual. Faust has already lived through his life to the point that is presented to us at the end of the first part as a person who has incurred the most serious guilt. [...] [unclear passage, see notes]

What must come to someone who is so burdened with guilt is the intrusion of the spiritual world and [a] healing from the spiritual world. This is what is needed, not a symbolic or allegorical representation, which would be inartistic. Goethe did not do that either, but he did depict what it is to have the supersensible world intrude in this Ariel scene with the elves, how the human being can strive for something new – even if they cannot thereby eradicate the guilt within them – when they come into right contact with the supersensible world. This is particularly suitable for eurythmic performances. Goethe wanted the second part of his “Faust” to be particularly suitable for the stage - and as far as the supersensory is concerned, if the eurythmic means of artistic expression had already existed in his time, he would undoubtedly have these [eurythmic means of artistic expression] /illegible passage] and would have presented that which otherwise, when the second part of “Faust” is presented on stage, always remains unsatisfactory.

Eurythmy really brings out the full inwardness of the [illegible word], while Goethe [gap:] meant: In something like? [illegible word] the second [part] of “Faust” I can with [illegible word] this first scene, which we are presenting here today in the first part before the break. So even the esteemed audience who have been here before will see how we are endeavoring to arrive at a [--] [unreadable passage] mode of presentation. We can say that we have made a great deal of progress in the last few months, particularly in the development of the forms of presentation. But we are well aware that the whole of eurythmic art is only at the beginning of its development and we are therefore convinced, although the strictest criticism comes from ourselves, that there is still room for improvement in this eurythmy. perfection [illegible word] [in] this eurythmy, that others or we ourselves, without [illegible word] [space], will still bring it to [a] higher form.

It is precisely this eurythmic art that shows how the human being, when used as a means of expression, can itself be the most perfect expression. It is Goethe again who says: “When nature begins to reveal its manifest secret to him, he feels an irresistible longing for its most worthy interpreter, art.” And art, when it uses man himself as an instrument, satisfies that which Goethe says so beautifully in his artist book about Winckelmann: By placing man [at the summit of nature, he in turn produces a summit within himself, taking measure, harmony and meaning together and finally elevating himself to a work of art].

[The rest of the speech is very fragmentary and difficult to decipher, see notes.]