The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 23 October 1920, Dornach

9. Address on Eurythmy

Program of the performance in Dornach, October 23 and 24, 1920

“The Fairy Tale of the Spring Miracle” from “The Testing of the Soul” by Rudolf Steiner, with music by Leopold van der Pals
“The Treasure Digger“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“Question – Answer” with a musical prelude by Max Schuurman
“Where Does Evil Come From” from ‘The Testing of the Soul’ by Rudolf Steiner
“Explanation of an antique gem” by J. W. v. Goethe
Three-part canon (children's group)
Children's song (children's group)
Scene with sylphs and gnomes from the 2nd picture of The Awakening of the Soul by R. Steiner
“Frohsinn” by Ferdinand Hiller (children's group) ‘An mein Kalb’ by Fercher von Steinwand
Satirical prelude with music by Leopold van der Pals
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: ‘Das Perlhuhn’; ‘Der Salm’; ‘Das Einhorn’; ‘Die Schuhe’

Eurythmy also has an educational value. The human being does not use language as he used to. Actually, the whole human being is involved in language. In the course of human development, the whole soul life, thinking, feeling and willing has concentrated on the speech organs. Gestures, feelings, body movements must come from the whole person. Basically, everything that is spoken comes from the whole person. Because it is concentrated on language, the human being forgets that he is involved in language. The will lives in every word. We have the feeling that when we speak a sentence of poetry, the whole person is present.

But language has become material, conventional; the participation in language itself ceases, the more civilized, the more conventional humanity becomes. In what he speaks, he can put everything into it. There would be much less temptation to tell untruths if the whole person were much more in the language. This will be seen more clearly later. The lie and untruth can come in that way. The less inclined a person would be to speak conventionally if he placed more value on it being the expression of his entire being.

In Waldorf schools, the best experiences have been made with eurythmy in education. It is different from ordinary gymnastics. Soul enters into every movement. People are inclined to develop untruthfulness in speech. Eurythmy is important for the initiative of the soul, of the will. The will becomes stronger. Speech flows out of the will. People feel the truth through the fact that it is a visible language. It is not so easy to lie with a gesture as it is with mere words. Thus eurythmy has become a means of education.

The phraseology that is now interspersed with the will will cease. People are happy to accompany speech with movement, but they hold it back because it is not considered “comme il faut”. You can't declaim in the way we do today, when we only speak in prose. Here eurythmy must be accompanied by declamation that emphasizes the formal aspects of the language as given to it by the poet. A true poet feels that all language is based on imagery. Goethe rehearsed his Iphigenia with a baton because he emphasized the flow of iambic verse. In eurythmic movement, one sees the soul directly. Besides being an art form, it is also a means of education; gymnastics only affects the body. Eurythmy focuses on the soul and spirit, the noblest part of a person.