The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 12 December 1920, Dornach

17. Address on Eurythmy

Program for the performance in Dornach, December 11 and 12, 1920

“Zum neuen Jahr” (On the New Year) by J. W. v. Goethe
“Der Spaziergang” (The Walk) by Martin Opitz
Saying from the Calendar of the Soul (35.) by Rudolf Steiner
“Mächtiges Überraschen“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“Waldkonzerte” by Christian Morgenstern with music by Max Schuurman
“The evening bells“ by Thomas Moore
“Morgenlied” by C. F. Meyer
Saying from the soul calendar (38.) by Rudolf Steiner
“Forest Song“ by Nikolaus Lenau with music by Walter Abendroth
“Evening Feeling” by Friedrich Hebbel
“Yes“ by C. F. Meyer
“To a Dead One” by Rudolf Steiner with music by Walter Abendroth
Scene with Sylphs and Gnomes from the 2nd picture of The Awakening of the Soul by R. Steiner

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words in advance of our attempt at a eurythmic presentation – not to explain the content of the presentation (artistic work must speak for itself, and an explanation would naturally be out of place because it would be inartistic itself), but it is necessary to say a few words in advance because what we are calling eurythmic art here draws from previously unfamiliar artistic sources and also makes use of an artistic formal language that is also unfamiliar.

You will see a kind of spatial movement art: the individual human being moves on stage, moves in his limbs or also groups of people, groups of people in their mutual relationships, in reciprocal movement and so on. The movements involved are not gestures, they are not facial expressions, so what is presented here as the eurythmic art is not to be understood as anything like dance. And it is precisely a new art that uses the human being as an instrument, and the movements are entirely lawful movements.

This conformity to law has come about through the fact that the movements that a person makes in their larynx and other speech organs when they engage in spoken language have been studied through sensual and supersensible observation – to use this Goethean expression. Only: in spoken language, the movements that the larynx and the other speech organs want to carry out – the inner movements, or better said, the movement systems – are stopped in their development and transformed into smaller vibrational movements that carry the sound through the air so that it can be heard. That which still takes place inside the human speech organs is transferred to the whole person or to groups of people. The basis for this is what Goethe's metamorphosis is. Since everything that comes from this spiritual place is in the sense of Goetheanism, so too is this eurythmic art as a detail.

Goethe formed the doctrine of metamorphosis out of his universal world view. And if I want to characterize something abstractly – not to develop some kind of theory, but just to explain myself – the simple way in which Goethe applies this doctrine of plant metamorphosis, I would have to say the following: Goethe sees in each individual leaf, as he himself says, a whole plant, so that if everything that is ideally present in each individual leaf really grows out, the whole plant arises. The whole plant is thus a complex leaf, and each individual leaf is a primitive, elementary plant, in idea. What Goethe has expounded for the metamorphosis of organisms – for he extended this to all organisms – can also be applied to the functions and formations of the organism and then transferred to the artistic. If we take what is present in a single group of organs, in the larynx and the other speech organs, in terms of their structure and also in terms of their idea, and transform it into movements of the whole human being, thus making the whole human being or groups of people into a larynx that is vividly moved, we get a visible language. And this visible language is the basis of what our eurythmy art should be.

It is only natural that such an art, which makes use of unusual artistic means, will initially meet with resistance. All this resistance will fade away over time. What is being created here is not random gestures, in which, if they are supposed to be mimic gestures, random connections are sought between this or that arm movement and the like and some kind of emotional state. That is not being done here. Rather, just as a certain nuance of sound in spoken language corresponds to a certain process of the soul, as sequences of sounds correspond to processes of the soul, and so on, so it is here with the lawful sequence of movements. That which is otherwise expressed in spoken language, in song, in music in general, is simply represented by a different artistic means, by a different formal language, in eurythmy.

Therefore, as you will see at our performance, the very same thing that comes to light in eurythmy can be accompanied on the one hand by music. In this way, what is expressed through the sound is also expressed through human movement. But it can also be accompanied by visible speech, audible speech, recitation, declamation, so that on the one hand the poem is recited, and on the other hand the actual artistic content of the poem is translated into the visible language of eurythmy. This shows how, in our somewhat inartistic times, this eurythmy can in turn have an effect on how we develop artistic feelings, for example, in relation to recitation and declamation.

Today, what is considered particularly important in terms of recitation and declamation is the literal content of a poem. Actually, it is not the literal content that is important in a poem, but only that part of it that is either plastic-pictorial or musical. Therefore, the recitation and the declamation, in that they are to accompany the eurythmy, must take this into account, they must particularly emphasize the artistic, rhythm, beat, and inner shaping of the language, and one will again come back to the conception of the art of recitation as it existed in artistic epochs. I need only remind you that Goethe used the baton to rehearse his iambic dramas with his actors, just as one rehearses a piece of music, and thus also emphasized the iambic structure of the verse, not the literal content of the prose. It will also have an effect on the art of recitation, because this art of recitation must accompany the eurythmic, that which underlies the artistic aspect of eurythmy in the first place.

You will see, especially those of the honored audience who have seen these performances before, how we are even progressing from month to month. Earlier, we used this visible language of eurythmy to simultaneously present the poetic content during the recitation. Now we are trying to present the entire main content of a poem or the like through preparatory and concluding movements that are given purely through movements, so that the silent, visible language of eurythmy alone can also be shown to advantage now.

That, dear attendees, is the artistic element. It is one element of our eurythmy. The second element is what I would like to call the pedagogical-didactic element. This eurythmy is, in addition to being something artistic, also something that could be called soulful gymnastics. And as such it is effective in our Waldorf School, which was founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart and which I have established and continue to lead. We have introduced eurythmy as a compulsory subject in all classes alongside gymnastics. It must be said that something like gymnastics will be judged differently by more artistically impartial ages than today's [people]. We really do not need to go as far as a famous contemporary physiologist who was here recently, who heard these introductory words and looked at eurythmy, as he said that from his physiological point of view gymnastics is not an educational tool at all, but a barbarism. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am not saying this, but a contemporary physiologist, whose name would certainly command great respect from people if they heard it.

But I do not want to go that far. I want to say that gymnastics is something that is carried out according to the laws of physics and is designed according to the physiological foundations of the human being. If a child is allowed to perform the same movements that are meaningfully revealed in eurythmy, then the body, soul and spirit, that is, the whole person, is engaged. And we have already seen, now that we have been at the Stuttgart Waldorf School for more than a school year, how the children feel their way with great love into what is offered to them as the eurythmic art. They simply feel that these movements are drawn from the human organization itself.

And just as it is natural for a child to feel an inner, organic joy when learning to speak, so children between the ages of seven and fourteen or fifteen experience learning these eurythmic movements as something that is rooted in the whole organization, finding their way into this eurythmic. They find their humanity guided in the right direction. And one can say that of the almost four hundred children we have in the Waldorf School, there were perhaps at most two or three who did not enjoy it as much as all the other schoolchildren. So those who, for whatever reason, have found it difficult to get into eurythmy for a short time are a very small number compared to the great majority who take part in these lessons with tremendous enthusiasm. I may also say that this teaching educates the children in such a way that we really need: soul and will initiative, which gymnastics as such cannot do.

We will first present individual pieces in the first part of our performance. In the second part - after a short break - we will try to present a scene from one of my “mystery dramas”. Everything that relates to the supersensible, that is, that which means the supersensible reaches into the sensory world, is presented in eurythmy, while that which, I would like to say, takes place entirely in the prose of the day, that is, that which takes place in the sensory world, while that must of course be presented in a naturalistic way in the drama, at least initially. However, I do intend to find a kind of eurythmy for drama as such. But that is still to be created. It will then become clear that the imbalance that still exists today between the eurythmic and the purely naturalistic in drama will be overcome. But these are works that still need to be done. It just so happens that it is precisely this that is being shown – we have also shown, by attempting to present Goethe's “Faust” in such a way that we eurythmized what relates to the supersensible within it – we have shown and it could be seen from this that precisely these supersensible elements of the drama come to full revelation when eurythmy is applied to them.

I would just like to say a few words about the second part, which is performed after the interval. It presents a stage in the development of a soul. The soul encounters its own youth, externalized, at a certain point in its development, and other soul forces encounter it. That which otherwise takes place in the human being, not tangibly, is exposed, presented not as a symbolic figure, not allegorically transferred, but actually in such a way that it is presented in direct, supersensible spiritual reality. And for that, because it cannot be thought of in any other way than eurythmically – one cannot think of it in any other way than eurythmically, feel it eurythmically – eurythmy is particularly suitable.

From all this, however, you will see that we still have a great need to ask the esteemed audience for indulgence, because we ourselves are the strictest critics of what we are not yet able to achieve today. Eurythmy is still at the very beginning of its development. But as well as we can know that we are only making an attempt at a beginning, we can also still claim, out of our connection with our cause, that as our cause develops, whether through us or probably through others, that eurythmy will become ever more perfect and that one day it will truly stand as a young sister art alongside the older, fully-fledged sister arts and be able to be seen as a fully-fledged young art.