The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 30 January 1921, Dornach

21. Address on Eurythmy

Program for the performance in Dornach, January 30, 1921

“Christmas Song” with music by Leopold van der Pals (children's group)
“Buttercup Yellow Meadows” by Christian Morgenstern
Saying from the Calendar of the Soul (42.) by Rudolf Steiner
“Often in the stilly night“ by Thomas Moore
“Lullaby”
“My Child“ by Heinrich Heine
“April” by William Watson
“Forest Concerts“ by Christian Morgenstern
“Little Bird” by Edward Grieg
Saying from the Soul Calendar (43.) by Rudolf Steiner
“The Arrow and the Song“ by H. W. Longfellow
“Urtrieb VII” by Fercher von Steinwand
“Urtrieb VIII“ by Fercher von Steinwand
“Wiegenlied” (Lullaby) (children's group)
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “Der Wasseresel”; “Theater I”; “Theater II”; “Die Wissenschaft”

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words to introduce this eurythmy performance, as I usually do. Not to explain the matter, may I be allowed to speak to you about these words; rather, because what we are doing here is based on an artistic form that is still unfamiliar and also comes from artistic sources that are still unfamiliar. What you will see on the stage are movements of the individual human being through his limbs, and also movements of groups of people, spatial forms and the like. At first glance, all this could be seen as a kind of gestural art, as a kind of mimic or pantomime art, and could be confused with all kinds of neighboring arts, movement-like arts and the like. However, this is not what is meant here at all. What can be seen here as eurythmy would be misunderstood if lumped together with pantomime or gesticulation. This is a presentation of a visible language that is performed by the whole human being, as audible speech is otherwise performed by the larynx and other speech organs, that is, by a very specific, localized part of the human organism.

Just as everything else that comes from this place is called Goetheanism by us, so too can we, in a sense, describe this eurythmic art as a part of Goetheanism. I can best describe the underlying principles by saying a few words about them. It may sound somewhat abstract, but that is not what I mean at all. What Goethe meant in theory in his theory of metamorphosis is meant entirely artistically. This theory of metamorphosis will one day play a much greater role than it has already played, when it is realized that the organism, the human being, can actually be wonderfully explained by the theory of metamorphosis, be it in plants, animals or humans.

This theory of metamorphosis can be initially illustrated using the object with which Goethe himself first presented it: the plant. For Goethe sees in the individual plant leaf only a simpler version of the whole plant. So each individual leaf is the idea of a whole plant, and the whole plant in turn is only a more complicated leaf. But in this way, everything alive can be understood in the Goethean sense. A single organ or a group of organs always represents the whole in a certain way – according to its disposition. And the whole is basically only – only more complicatedly formed – some organ or a group of organs.

What Goethe applies to form can also be applied to the activity of the organism and then elevated to the artistic. So we can say: What a person develops as a certain inner tendency of movement when he speaks – in every sound, in every turn of phrase, in everything that becomes audible through speech – is based on an inner tendency of movement. This is precisely why the whole human being reveals himself in language.

What takes place in a particular group of organs when a person communicates through speech or, in particular, when he or she expresses it artistically in poetry or song, what is communicated through a single group of organs, can be seen just as as the individual leaf is taken by Goethe as the whole plant, so that which is revealed in a single organ group, once one has learned to observe it through sensory and supersensory vision and has applied this observation over the course of years, can be extended to the whole human being: And so a visible language comes into being that can be used, on the one hand, as a different form of expression for that which also resounds in music. In music, we have, on the one hand, what is to be revealed out of the nature of the soul in the beginning; in poetry, we have the other side. And since we are dealing here with movements in a visible language, in which the whole human being or groups of people become visible larynxes on the stage, what wants to reveal itself musically on the one hand and poetically in recitation or declamation on the other can be revealed through this eurythmic art. It is not about mimicry or pantomime.

One can see that this is still unusual today, because I am repeatedly confronted with an accusation that is often raised at eurythmy performances: that the movements might be quite nice, but that our eurythmy artists are missing something, namely a certain expression on their faces. People then miss that.

But in doing so, they show that they have not yet grasped what eurythmy is about. If the artists were to convey what can be expressed in facial expressions, pantomime, in the physiognomy, then this would appear as an appendage to the eurythmic art, in the same way as grimaces can appear when speaking. That is what is usually not understood: that it is a visible language. Once you grasp that, you also know that if what is expressed in the face, head and so on is to be developed, then it will also be used, but it must lie within the meaning of the eurythmic line of movement itself. In this sense, eurythmy is something, let us say, like the musical art itself, where it is not the individual note that matters, the individual movement, but the lawful sequence of movements in the melody and so on. That is what our eurythmy is based on. Everything is a real language. And just as a momentary gesture cannot be anything other than an aid to speech – for instance, for the speech of sounds, when particular passions or particular emotions are to be expressed through this speech of sounds – in this sense, something of ordinary gestures or ordinary facial expressions cannot accompany that which is eurythmy. But the eurythmic element is present in every single movement, even in the smallest, and is something that is based on sensual and supersensory observation and that is extracted from the whole human organization as an independent element, just as the physiognomy of the larynx and the other speech organs is otherwise brought about from the whole of the human being in the production of speech sounds.

Therefore, what asserts itself as a eurythmic movement cannot be compared to any other naturalistic movement. Above all, it would be a dilettantish misunderstanding of eurythmy to believe that what comes about through distortions or through the facial expressions that are already formed, that this is somehow something like language; but something cannot be there because it does not belong to the thing.

On the one hand, you will see how that which is to be revealed spiritually in song and music is expressed through the visible, musical-linguistic expressive movement that lies in eurythmy. And on the other hand, you will hear poems recited in an artistic way, through recitation and declamation, which on the other hand will be performed in front of you in the movements of individuals or whole groups of people. This shows how the art of declamation and recitation is not really understood in its true artistic element today. Today, people think that recitation should be done in such a way that the prose content of the poetry is expressed. Somehow – with particular intensity, as one might think – this or that element of the prose content is emphasized, while something else is dropped or the like.

In this way, one would never be able to accompany eurythmy declamatory or recitative, but because in eurythmy the main thing is inner movement, what forms are, what is truly artistic, must also be emphasized in the poems that are recited to the accompaniment of eurythmy. Great poets like Goethe have always placed the greatest value on this form and design of language. It must be emphasized again and again how Goethe himself rehearsed “Iphigenia” - that is, iambs - with a baton in order to place the main emphasis on the melodious flow of speech, on rhythm and on the beat, and not on the prose content. And with Schiller it was always the case that before he developed any kind of poetry, he had a kind of melodious element in his soul. And this musical, melodious element dominated him; at first it was completely wordless, the words only came later.

So what is musical or plastic in language, which is not the prose content, is what comes to the fore through eurythmy. This is why, when eurythmy is accompanied by declamation and recitation, it must also come into its own in this art. And so the unartistic element, which is even admired in much of our declaiming and reciting today because our time is somewhat unartistic, will in turn lead us back to an artistic element. I just wanted to mention this in relation to the artistic element of our eurythmy.

Today, however, you will also see performances by children, in addition to the artistic eurythmy performances. And I would like to point out another element here. There is also a third element, the therapeutic and hygienic element. It does not belong here to discuss that, but the second. I would like to point out: In the Waldorf School founded by Emil Molt and directed by me, we have something like an animated gymnastics, [we have] introduced eurythmy as a compulsory teaching subject into the classroom. And we can truly say – the lessons have been going on for a little longer than a year now – that it is really as one might expect: this subject is perceived by the children as something that they feel and experience quite emotionally as emerging from human nature. So that the children feel: the body wants to move in the way that is performed in eurythmy.

You don't have to go as far as – as I have repeatedly stated – a very famous contemporary physiologist, who was present here recently. And when I spoke to him about it, he told me from his physiological point of view that gymnastics is not an appropriate subject for teaching at all, but is something barbaric. As I said, I do not want to go that far, it is not necessary, but I do want to admit, contrary to this physiologist: gymnastics is of great value for physical education, and we certainly do not want to ban it from the classroom. But we place at its side a spiritualized gymnastics that truly not only trains the body but also trains the will and soul. It will be seen that the next generation will already have a great need for what eurythmy can give - this applies less to adults, but more to children. It must be emphasized that in the civilised languages, where much has become conventional, this conventionality, which often leads to phrase-mongering and then to lies, takes hold of the soul so easily. If we introduce eurythmy into the school, it is a language that comes from the whole human being. In this language, the child cannot learn to lie. That is why it is so extremely important that eurythmy is also used as a form of soul training in schools, alongside the usual physical education. As a teaching subject, it is then also a school of truthfulness, of breaking the habit of using empty phrases, of merely outward convention and the like.

Dear audience, although these intentions are all connected with eurythmy, I have to emphasize again and again before each performance that we have to ask for a great deal of forbearance, and that is because it is all only just beginning. We are our own harshest critics, and those who have been here often, especially months ago, will have noticed that we have recently put a lot of effort into the musical aspects, especially in the design of the forms on which the poems are based, and that progress can certainly be seen. But we are just at the beginning. If, on the one hand, we are to some extent our own harshest critics, we know from the sources, from the formal language of this art, about its developmental possibilities. And we know that when this eurythmy is fully developed - perhaps we will be able to develop it further, but in any case it has potential for development that requires a long period of training - and when it is developed, perhaps by others, it will in any case, according to its potential, one day be a fully fledged art alongside its older sister arts.