The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 5 May 1921, Dornach

33. Eurythmy Performance

The first part of the performance took place in the Goetheanum, the second, more cheerful part in the carpentry workshop. There is no program for this performance. Among other things, the seventh scene from the first mystery drama “The Portal of Initiation” was performed.

Dear attendees!

The eurythmic art, of which we would like to show you a sample, is based on a visible language that expresses itself in the movements of the human limbs, especially the arms and hands, which make it possible to reveal the greatest amount of soul expression through them. Thus it is a visible language, but one that is not based on arbitrariness. It does not come about in the same way as mimicry, pantomime or dance. Rather, these eurythmic forms, this visible language, come about through observing, through sensuous and supersensuous vision, what lies at the basis of human speech and song as inner movement tendencies of the speech and everything that belongs to the speech organs. Just as phonetic language and song express nothing arbitrary, so this eurythmic, visible language represents nothing arbitrary either, but something that arises entirely lawfully from the nature of the human organism.

If we study speech, which then finds its other expression in song, I would say, we see that the laws of the world of thought, which in turn arise out of the life of the senses, flow into speech. Everything that flows into human speech from the world of ideas and thoughts is actually the inartistic element of speech. For art is actually killed by the conceptual, by the imaginative. But in addition, the will and the feeling flow into language from the whole human being. This will and feeling is now just as much an expression of the inner human being as the conceptual is a result of the human being observing his surroundings.

If you observe language as it develops into the whole of educated civilization, you will find that, as the conceptual predominates more and more in the actual language, that there are original sensations of the sound, of the tone, and that these original sensations are killed by what is poured into the language by the conceptual element. The mental element pours into language the grammatical and prosaic. The poet, in turn, seeks to overcome this when he shapes language artistically, and then, the true poetic artist seeks to approximate language to what it is as an expression of the whole human being, as an expression of sympathy and antipathy, as feelings, as an expression of joy, pain and suffering, of the intensification of feelings and so on. In this way, the poet works his way out of the abstractly prosaic-dramatic and works his way into that which is actually artistic in language, but which is basically a volitional act. The poet works his way into the euphony of the tone, of the sound; he works his way into that which is a kind of religious-grammatical /] summarizing of sounds; he works his way into the rhythm, meter and so on, alliteration and so on. These are all formations, revelations of language. And only with the fact that this element, this ungrammatical, one might say anti-grammatical and anti-conceptual element, comes into the formation of language, is language in turn led back to its actual artistic element.

In singing, we have the attempt of man to shape the tones in the same way: that one actually leaves the sound unconsidered, that that which makes language into language is completely taken out of language itself and that only the tone figures in it. So here we are dealing with a withdrawal of the human being from the actual sound. This is what makes singing a possible companion to music, which is precisely an outwardly unformed, an outwardly ideal-spiritual, spiritual formation, as is also the basis of singing.

Now one can say: Nevertheless, it can be clearly perceived, especially in the original languages, that a certain ability is present in man to inwardly experience the sound itself. By practicing in a musical and vocal way, one withdraws from the sound to the mere tone. And the question arises: how can we bring to external manifestation that which does not flow from the external world into language and kills the tone, the sound, pushing it into the grammatical?

There is no doubt that what the poet can only find halfway, namely this return to the artistic element with language, can also be made visible. And this is indeed achieved through what is attempted with eurythmy. What the musical element alone cannot achieve is indeed made possible: the revelation of the emotional and volitional experience of the human being in the tone itself, in the sound itself, the experience of that which has already been completely effaced and lost in the grammatically prosaic treatment of language; so that the truly poetic element of a poem can indeed visible language, as eurythmy is, can particularly express the actual poetry of a poem.

And so, by observing what lives in language as a volitional element, by being able to extract this from the human form in a completely lawful way, one can create a visible language that is as directly based on the outer human form as, I would like to say, the tongue, palate and lip movements are based on what flows from the head and heart in ordinary language. And this is precisely what happens in eurythmy. In eurythmy, we are dealing with a visible language that, by its very nature, can express what flows from the whole being of the human being in the poet.

I would like to say: in this eurythmy, the human form is transformed into soul-inspired movement, just as the harmonious proportions of the whole human being live in the resting human form. The human being thus makes himself the tool of what he experiences soulfully through the artfully eurythmically shaped movement. And just as he himself is an expression of his whole being in his resting form, so in eurythmy one has a means of presenting to the eye what is in the poem.

But one can just as easily sing with this visible language as one can sing with the larynx, with the chest. Therefore, on the one hand, you will see our eurythmic performances of the recitation or declamation of corresponding poems, which are to be brought to revelation through this visible language, and on the other hand, you will see the musical element, which is accompanied, so to speak, by a visible song, by a eurythmically visible song.

Only someone who has no interest in expanding the means of our artistic expression can actually rebel against such an attempt at a new language, a new artistic means of expression. Those who have an 'open heart and an appreciation for the expansion of the field of art can only greet it with joy if we can succeed in expanding the field of artistic means to include a wider area.

You will see, my dear audience, that it is also possible – we have tried this more and more in recent months, as our esteemed viewers will remember from our earlier, more primitive performances – to present it alone in eurythmy. And you will see this in the introductory formations and in the final sounds at the end of a poem or a piece of music, which are presented to you in eurythmy, how they introduce the mood of a poem – or you can also let this mood fade away, so that eurythmy can speak for itself in a certain sense. It then speaks in an outwardly visible form, in a moving sculpture, what is felt through the poem or through the piece of music.

In earlier times, in earlier weeks, we tried to bring those scenes from Goethe's “Faust” to dramatic stage representation that lead away from the ordinary life of the senses, into supersensible regions, where that which plays out of the spiritual world into the human soul is to be represented. I hope that we will also succeed in finding a real stage style for realistic scenes from eurythmy. So far, we have not yet succeeded in doing this. But everything in Goethe's “Faust” – and one often has the opportunity to observe such things – that stands out from the usual realism of the physical world, can be brought to the stage particularly through this silent language of eurythmy.

You will see that in the scene from one of my “Mysterienspiele” (mystery plays) that is being performed today, where a person's spiritual processes are described, that eurythmy can be used as a particularly dramatic means of expression on stage. This scene is one of those in my Mysteries where it is intended to show how, in the ordinary fullness of life and in ordinary cognition, not only abstract soul processes take place in the human being, but how soul processes take place in the human being that change his entire relationship to the outer world, change it in the way that growing conditions, that is, real processes of becoming, change it. The fact that one is compelled to present such things, which thus present something quite real spiritually in the human being, means that one must present the human being's relationship to the world in a more intimate way than is otherwise the case in realistic drama. After all, you can't explain a compass needle, for example, just by looking at it; you have to explain it by relating it to the whole of the earth's magnetism. In the same way, we have to relate the human being to the whole spiritual world. We cannot do this by means of abstract laws; we have to enter into the concrete and pictorial. We have to present natural processes in such a way that they also represent a moral development.

This is the case in the scene that is to be presented today and in which the eurythmic means of expression is used in particular. It shows how John undergoes such inner psychological processes. But it would only give a pale picture if, for example, John were to express them or if they were to be depicted symbolically. That is not real art, but one must see things in a concrete, pictorial way, one must go into the concrete and pictorial, so that what takes place between Mary and the soul forces - which appear as real spiritual powers, not merely as natural forces, but as real spiritual powers - is a revelation of that which is really present spiritually. Thus the presentation becomes something that really concerns people, something that plays into people from the spiritual world, just as earth magnetism plays into the magnetic needle.

It is then necessary to rise with this theatrical, dramatic aspect of art and gesture to what is given through eurythmy, where one can actually express the whole human interior more adequately through the shaping of human movements than is otherwise possible through ordinary everyday gestures. The stylized gesture, which is no longer a gesture but a continuation of what is present in the static form, moves into movement; one forms, one represents that which plays into the supersensible world.

One consequence of the fact that the truly poetic and artistic is challenged by eurythmy is that recitation or declamation must also depart from what is particularly valued in our inartistic age as the art of recitation. Today, in fact, everything recited or declaimed tends to emphasize the prosaic element, that is, the inartistic element in the poem. You find that on the outside [artistic?]. But here we must go back to the actual form that the poet gives according to rhythm, meter, rhyme, imagery, and so on.

It is strange: one could recently read in a particularly laudatory review about contemporary stage and recitation speaking that someone has recently succeeded, has succeeded with language, in presenting something in such a way that one no longer noticed the rhythm and rhyme and so on. So they particularly praised the fact that the person in question was especially successful at killing the poetry in the prose. Today, this is considered particularly outstanding. But this is something that is quite characteristic of an unartistic age. Something that is really looking for artistic means must be introduced. We have to go back to recitation and declamation in rhythm, we have to achieve more and more eurythmy even in speaking. And in many other ways, eurythmy will be able to lead us back to a truly artistic experience, which is often very far removed from our present time, more than most people actually realize. This is about the artistic element of eurythmy.

Eurythmy also has another side, which is already being cultivated here. Above all, it has a therapeutic-hygienic side, which can also be carried out through eurythmy, because through the eurythmy movements that follow from the healthy human organism, polar opposites are juxtaposed to healing processes in contrast to everything that enters the human organism through illness. In certain cases, therefore, what we may call eurythmy therapy can serve therapeutic and hygienic purposes. I only mention this because I believe it has a certain significance.

The third element of this eurythmy is what must be called the pedagogical-didactic element, which has already been introduced and tried out at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, founded by Emil Molt and directed by me. We have introduced eurythmy into the Waldorf School in Stuttgart as a compulsory subject, like a form of gymnastics that is imbued with soul and spirit. It has been shown that from the earliest childhood, the pupils experience this soul-inspired gymnastics as something in which their organic laws can truly be lived out as a matter of course. This is what eurythmy can do in terms of educational didactics. And one can say: it is also an extraordinary pedagogical tool. While ordinary gymnastics, which is based entirely on physiology, only trains the body, the soul-inspired gymnastics that comes to light in eurythmy involves training the whole human being in body, soul and spirit. And the child feels that very deeply.

But it also has a particularly strong effect on the will initiative, which is so urgently needed in our time, because it works deep within the human being. I would like to say that it is precisely in the child - it is less evident in the adult - that truthfulness is brought to bear. For one can lie in a language that has become conventional, especially at a civilized stage of human development, one can say empty phrases. But with what wells up out of the whole human being from a visible language of eurythmy, one cannot fall into phrase. The child therefore learns truthfulness, a sense of truth through this eurythmy.

All these things will one day be able to be viewed more impartially than today, when ingrained prejudices stand in the way on the one hand. In terms of art, this eurythmy really does something that can be characterized by a Goethean word that Goethe himself said about the visual arts: When man stands at the summit of nature, he sees himself as a whole nature that has to produce another summit within itself. To do this, he rises by permeating himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art.

He can rise all the more to the production of the work of art, the more he uses his own organism with the wonderful laws within it as a tool, if he does not use external instruments, but uses his own organism as a tool for artistic expression. Then it becomes apparent how, basically, a kind of small world, a microcosm, is also contained in the possibilities of movement of the human organism. There are tremendous secrets to be drawn from this human organism. And so, in such a development of eurythmy, one senses the truth of Goethe's words: “When nature begins to reveal her secrets to him who is open to them, he feels an irresistible longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.”

And art must come into being when the human being takes themselves as a means of expression for what they experience spiritually and intellectually. That, dear assembled guests, is what I wanted to say by way of introduction. I would just like to ask the honored audience for their forbearance, as I always do before these performances; for we know that what can be called eurythmy is still only a kind of ideal, that we are only at the beginning of what eurythmy should become. But we also know what possibilities for the development of eurythmy lie in this striving for a eurythmic art that can be further and further developed, to the extent that this presentation in visible language will one day be able to present itself as a worthy, younger art alongside the older, recognized and established art forms.

So that is what I have to say, as I said. I would now just like to add that we can only present the first part in this room. There will then be an intermission after the first part, and during this intermission, the honored audience is requested to go to the provisional hall of the Goetheanum.