The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 29 December 1920, Olten

18. Eurythmy Performance

It was a performance with children's presentations for teachers. In the evening, there was a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on “Anthroposophy and the Art of Education”. The program for the performance is not available.

Dear attendees,

So what remains latent in man, what is not actually expressed in speech, but is only a tendency, because the spiritual is behind language, is observed by means of sensory and supersensory observation – carefully – and what is then transferred to the whole human being according to the method of Goethe's metamorphosis teaching. I would just like to point out that in his theory of metamorphosis, which unfortunately is still far too little appreciated today, Goethe views the organism in such a way that he says, for example: a single plant leaf is actually a whole plant, and the whole plant plant is an intricate leaf, the leaf is a simpler plant, a primitive plant, and the whole plant is an intricate leaf that can be recognized in its entirety. Each individual organ is such that the whole being can be recognized in it, in spirit.

In the same way, the human being as a whole is also found in the organs of speech, and what is expressed in the organs of speech through phonetic language can be transferred back to the whole human being. You will therefore see certain movements of people and groups of people as living speech organs, which appear not only to the ear but also to the eye. For everything that is otherwise expressed through music or poetry can be expressed in this visible language.

Only, for example, in declamation, recitation, must the rhythmic, the metrical, be adhered to, not the prose content, as is particularly popular today in declamation. If the poetry is recited at the same time as it is presented in eurythmy, if the two are parallel, then one is compelled to have eurythmy in the recitation as well. This is just as unusual today as eurythmy as a whole, and that is why many people reject it. However, it will become more accepted once people understand eurythmy better.

I just want to talk about the artistic side of things with these few words; but since we have come together here primarily for pedagogical reasons, I would like to point out that this eurythmy, in addition to its artistic side, has an essential pedagogical one and was introduced as a compulsory subject in the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which is built entirely on our anthroposophical principles. We have seen how, during the year she has been working at the Waldorf School, she has been received by the children, I might say, with tremendous love and as a matter of course, especially by the children.

What is eurythmy for them? What is eurythmy for children? It is soul-inspired gymnastics. Gymnastics today are so developed that movements are only formed according to the laws of the human body. It is therefore something essential that is based on the physiology, the physical nature of the human being. Here we are dealing with something that is based on soul and spiritual observations in every movement. The child notices that the whole person is transformed into movement. That is why you can achieve something with children through this eurythmy that you cannot achieve through ordinary gymnastics.

I certainly do not want to go as far as a famous contemporary physiologist who recently spoke these kinds of introductory words. He later told me: gymnastics is not an educational tool at all, but barbarism. As I said, I did not say that myself, but an excellent physiologist; he did not want to accept that any educational value was attached to gymnastics at all. It has a significance as a physical educational tool. But here, with eurythmy as a subject to be taught, it is important that, above all, what the next generation needs so much – will need even more than before – the initiative of the will, the inspired initiative of the will, is expressed in this physical education. With adults, eurythmy has less of an effect in this sense, but with children, the following also comes into play: when a person is forced to express himself through visible movements, he is at the same time compelled to fight within himself everything that is empty verbiage. And if we remember how we live in the present in the phrase - and the phrase is only the lesser sister of the lie - so we can regard what eurythmy shows as an educational tool for children, as an educational tool for truthfulness. And above all, it must be emphasized that children feel how these things are drawn from the laws of the human organism, how natural being flows from these things. The child feels this. This is what makes eurythmy particularly suitable as an educational tool.

Finally, I would like to add that we are well aware that eurythmy is in its infancy in terms of both its educational and artistic aspects. We know this very well. But we also know that if this beginning - we ourselves are the strictest critics of what we can already do today - but if this beginning is perhaps expanded by us and later by others, the time will come when not only will this eurythmy be able to stand as a fully-fledged younger art alongside the older fully-fledged arts, but it will also be taken for granted as a means of educating young people in the richest way. We are convinced that this will certainly be recognized one day. For the time being, however, we still need to ask for patience and forbearance for what we can do today – we are just at the beginning, perhaps only at the beginning of an attempt. But for us it is a promising beginning.