The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 23 May 1920, Dornach

69. Eurythmy Performance

“Veni Creator Spiritus” by J. W. v. Goethe
Saying from the soul calendar (7.) by Rudolf Steiner
“All” by C. F. Meyer
Saying from the soul calendar (8.) by Rudolf Steiner
From the 8th symphony by Anton Bruckner
“To the Moon“ by J. W. v. Goethe
Saying from the Soul Calendar (9.) by Rudolf Steiner
”Forest Concerts“ by Christian Morgenstern
From the C major Symphony by Franz Schubert
”My Goddess” by J. W. v. Goethe
“Life is a Bad Joke“ by J. W. v. Goethe
Children's performances
”Little Dance“ by J. S. Bach (children's group with eurythmists)
”To my Calf” by Fercher von Steinwand
Children's performances (anapaests; ‘A Riddle’ by Rudolf Steiner)
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: 'Bildhauerisches'; 'Palma Kunkels'; 'Die Oste und die Weste'
Opening of the droplets with music by Leopold van der Pals
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: 'Elster'; 'Anfrage'; 'Antwort'; 'Entwurf zu einem Trauerspiel'
Drip opening with music by Leopold van der Pals

Program is for may 23 and 24

Dear attendees!

I take the liberty of saying these introductory words again today, as I usually do before these eurythmy performances. I do not do this in order to explain the performance itself; that would be an inartistic undertaking, for eurythmy should be a real art. It must have an effect through what it presents directly to the eye and should not need any explanation afterwards. But what is being attempted in eurythmy – although it is still in its infancy, at the beginning of its development – in terms of both the search for particular artistic sources and the particular artistic forms that are necessary and come into consideration, is something entirely new, and perhaps a few words may be said about this.

On the stage, you will see people and groups of people in motion. What is expressed through the movement of the limbs, especially the arms and hands of the people or the other limbs, and what is expressed through the particular position of people in groups, through the changing position, through the movement of groups, could initially be understood as a kind of gesticulation that arises out of the moment, that is, out of what is being done at the same time as the eurythmy, out of what is being recited at the same time, that is, the spoken poetry or the music that is being played. But it is not like that. These are not random gestures. It is not about mimicry or pantomime at all, but about a real visible language that is just as internally logical and as much a product of the human being as spoken language.

This can perhaps be seen by looking at the way in which this visible language of eurythmy is found. As I speak to you here with the help of spoken language, the movements that are evoked in the human larynx and the other speech organs are transmitted to the air, and the air carries the sounds to the human ear on the wings of its waves, so to speak. If one develops this special ability within oneself, one can perceive in this spoken language what one's attention is not drawn to in ordinary life: These are the movement tendencies of the larynx and its neighboring organs. Not the movements that the larynx itself naturally also stimulates, which are then transmitted to the air as vibrational movements, as trembling movements, but rather those movements that are present as movement tendencies that are much, much larger in scale, I would say. These can be studied so that one can say: Every formulation of spoken language, every sound, but also the particular nuances and accentuations and modulations of what is spoken, correspond to certain movement tendencies. These can be recognized through, if I may use the Goethean expression, sensual-supersensory observation, and can then be applied to the whole person. So that what might be called the application of Goethe's principle of metamorphosis to the activity of the whole human being occurs.

The Goethean principle of metamorphosis, which is still not sufficiently appreciated today, will certainly play a major role in the world view of the future. It is based on observing the transformation of the organic members of living beings. If I wanted to emphasize the main point here – but only the main point – I could say: Goethe regards the whole plant as a transformation of the individual leaf. The individual leaf is a primitive, whole plant; the whole plant is only a complicated leaf that has developed. In this way, one can also apply Goethe's principle of metamorphosis to the movement tendencies of the larynx and its neighboring organs that underlie spoken language. And if one then has it performed in a transformed way by the whole person, the whole person becomes, as it were, a visible larynx in front of you here on the stage.

You see before you as movements what otherwise takes place unnoticed as tendencies to move during speech. But in this way you can see, as it were, into the deeper structure of the human organization and draw from the sources that underlie the human form, human movement, and all of human life, this visible language of eurythmy. In this way the whole human being is used as an artistic tool.

As I said, all this should be understood in the most modest sense, because we are still at the very beginning of the development of the eurythmic art. But through this eurythmic art we achieve that we can truly express the human being, who is an image , a microcosm of the whole world, as even the driest philosophers have already conceded. [This is achieved by] making the human being himself, the whole human being, a means of expression through a limited link, the larynx and its neighboring organs, and visibly presenting this to the world, thus fulfilling, in a certain respect, what Goethe beautiful: the essence of man, which reveals itself in that, when man sees himself placed at the summit of nature, he in turn feels himself to be a whole nature, takes on order, measure, harmony and meaning, and finally rises to the production of the work of art. How could the human being rise to actual artistic expression more intensely than when he uses that which can be sought in himself as a language of forms with the help of his organization, when he uses himself as a means of artistic expression.

This is said with regard to the shaping of the sources. You will see from this that the aim is — at least as an ideal — to make our eurythmic art lose all that is mimic, all that is pantomime. If it still contains some of this here and there, it is only because it is still very much in the early stages of its development, and this will gradually disappear completely. But all naturalism should also disappear. For it is not a matter, for example, of reproducing in eurythmy, in a naturalistic way, the literal content of what is expressed in poetry, but of reproducing what the poet has made of his material in the poem.

In this, our present-day, unartistic age actually feels extraordinarily unartistic, which is why, when reciting, more and more emphasis is placed on the literal content, that is, on the prose content, and only this is taken into account - much more than the actual artistic element in the poetry. The artistic element of poetry never lies in the literal content. In his most important poems, before he began, Schiller always had something like an indefinite melody in his soul, nothing at all of the literal content, an indefinite melody, so that 'The Diver' or any other poem could become an indefinite melody. He only found the content for it afterwards. The actual artistic element of poetry is that which, as musicality in rhythm, meter, harmony and so on, underlies the melodious element in the thematic of poetry or also in that which underlies the plastic formation of poetry. This must also be brought out in eurythmy. Therefore, recitation and declamation must also return to the earlier artistic forms of recitation: namely, to emphasize the rhythmic, the metrical, and so on.

And this attempt at eurythmy will probably be understood one day, when people think about it more objectively, as a way back to the true artistic impulse, which is no longer fully expressed in our poetry because we are always seeking the literal element, the content of the thought, the prose. We must seek not the thought content, not the [what], but more the [how] must be sought. Through eurythmy, the way to get to the what through the how should be sought more; and this way will be found. The way from the thought to the will element of the human being will also be found.

A product is all the more inartistic the more the thought predominates. The thought in our written language has already taken on an abstract form in our civilized languages. It is either the expression of the human unformed, unimaginative inner being or it is there for human intercourse, it has been given a conventional form. By transferring that which is actually poetic about poetry into this visible, moving language, we lead the content of poetry back from the thought to the underlying, governing will element. And in the moved person we essentially have the will element.

The will element is now the one that is connected with the whole personality, not just with the abstract literalness of the words. We have the will element before us. And we can actually present much more from the whole human being when we give it in this visible language of eurythmy than when we give it in speech sounds, where the thought is supposed to convey everything.

Then I ask you to bear in mind that, despite our efforts to move forward in this eurythmy, it is still in the early stages of its development. Those of the honored audience who have been here often will see how we are now trying, especially in terms of form, to move beyond the naturalistic and the mimic more and more. We have made progress in terms of design in recent months. But with all this, we must ask for indulgence at the starting point of each such performance, for the reason that we are dealing with a beginning, perhaps even just an attempt at a beginning. But this is also based on the conviction that this beginning will be able to perfect itself and that in the future, perhaps no longer by us but by others, a great deal more will be added. So that in the future this eurythmy, this eurythmic art, will be able to stand alongside the other fully-fledged arts as something fully entitled in human cultural life.

[Before the break:]

After the break, we will present, among other things, something humorous and, above all, some children's eurythmy. Regarding this children's eurythmy, I would like to add that it should express a second aspect of our eurythmic art.

Of course, first and foremost, eurythmy should be an artistic expression, an artistic thing. But then it will also prove to have a pedagogical-didactic element, in that what can be achieved through gymnastics, where only the physiological aspects of the human being are actually taken into account, is significantly enriched by this soulful, spiritualized eurythmy gymnastics, which can also be eurythmy. These things will be thought about more objectively in the future. Then people will say: It is good for children to learn gymnastics, it will steel the body, it is something that makes the body stronger. But it is precisely that which ordinary gymnastics cannot develop and which is so lacking in our age that is developed in the human being through this soul-filled eurythmy gymnastics: what I would call will initiative. It develops will initiative in the soul.

In this respect, what is considered in children's eurythmy is a pedagogical-didactic element, something that is added to the artistic element of eurythmy.