The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 26 March 1922, Dornach

Eurythmy Address

The performance took place in the temporary hall of the carpentry workshop.

“Hymn to Nature” by J. W. v. Goethe
“Magic of Life” by Edward Grieg
“Coptic Song” by J. W. v. Goethe
“Let Us Love the Trees” by Albert Steffen
“Like the Flowers in the Garden” by Albert Steffen
“Swing Yourself onto the Saddle Wing” by Albert Steffen
8th picture (Ahriman's Realm) from “The Guardian of the Threshold” by R. Steiner
“Norwegian Folk Tune” by Edward Grieg
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “Mopsenleben”; “Himmel und Erde”; “Die Beichte des Wurms” with music by Max Schuurman; “Das Wasser”; “Die Luft”; “Der Papagei”; “Das Mondschaf”; “Das Grammophon”; “Der Gaul”

Notes on the speech

The context of the following notes in Notebook 265 suggests that these are notes that Rudolf Steiner had already made for the speeches for the performances in Leipzig and Breslau, for which no transcripts are available. The first speech that fits the content of the notes is that of March 26, 1922, which is why it is placed at the beginning.

Ladies and gentlemen!

Allow me to say a few words to introduce our attempt at a eurythmic performance. I always do this before such a performance, not for the sake of explaining the performance as such. That would be unartistic, because art must explain itself, must make an immediate impression. However, in eurythmy we are dealing with an artistic form of expression that is still unfamiliar today, which could also have its origins in artistic sources that are still unfamiliar. And I would like to say a few words about these sources and this form of expression.

On stage you will see individual people moving, and also groups of people moving. This can easily give the impression that it is something pantomimic, mimetic, a form of sign language dance or something similar. All of this may certainly have its justification – and its artistic validity is not being contested or criticized here in any way – all of this may have its justification; however, eurythmy, as attempted here, is nevertheless something else. The movements you will see – both in individuals and in groups of people – are a real, visible language and emerge from the human organism as naturally as the words of spoken language or the sounds of singing.

Through sensory-supersensory observation, it has been studied which movement tendencies — I do not say which movements, but which movement tendencies — underlie the human organism when a person speaks or sings. These tendencies toward movement, which thoroughly permeate the entire human organism — for speech and singing do not come merely from the organs of sound and tone, but from the whole human being — these movements, which permeate the whole human being, are recognized through sensory-supersensory observation, to use Goethe's expression. And then, by being transferred to the outer limbs of the human being — especially to the expressive movements of the arms and hands — they become a reflection of what is otherwise expressed in the human organism through sound and tone in speech and singing.

In ordinary speech and ordinary singing, these tendencies to move are transformed into movements of the larynx and other organs of sound and speech, which then communicate with the air, thereby conveying the sound to the ear. That which, in its origin in ordinary speech and singing, is transformed into partial movements, into partial movements of the human organism, is, in a sense, captured by sensory-supersensory vision. This is then expressed by the whole human being here on stage.

One can therefore say: it is as if, in this eurythmy, the whole human being becomes a visible larynx, a visible speech organism. What lies before that is actually only the beginning of the artistic; it is at most a language, which must first be treated artistically. And what one sees at first glance is to be judged no differently than rhythm, musical theme, or pictorial sound formation in language itself. So one should not attach any special importance to the question: Which individual movements correspond to this or that sound, these or those sentences, this or that tone? Instead, one must attach particular importance to the following: How does one form of movement transition into another? How do the movements follow one another in artistic design? In a certain sense, one is dealing with a regularity of movements, just as in music one has to deal with a regular sequence and regular equality of tones.

In this way, ladies and gentlemen, eurythmy becomes an art form that can be added as a third element to music and poetry. When we feel music, we actually feel the mood. We feel the inner essence of feeling itself in the tone. The spiritualization of feeling is expressed in music. When we come to poetry, the spiritual formation of the imaginative is revealed. What remains then is perception itself. In perception, the human being has the sensory external world before them. However, everything that exists in the sensory external world is also based on something spiritual. This spiritual element can only be represented by the human organism itself. And this representation of the perceived spiritual element by the human organism—that is, in the expression of the will—is eurythmy. — So that one can say: music is the spirit of feeling; poetry is the spirit of imagination; and eurythmy is the spirit of perception.

This places eurythmy alongside the other two as a legitimate art form. And one can also say that when one sees the moving human being on stage, becoming a means of expression for poetry and music, this moving human being is like a sculpture set in motion. So one can also say that alongside sculpture, alongside the art of sculpture, eurythmy stands as a special art form.

When this eurythmic performance on stage is accompanied by music, then eurythmy in its form of movement is, in a sense, visible singing. And in these types of performance, one can reproduce the vocal as well as through sound. But we also find here, accompanied by poetry in recitation and declamation, that which is represented eurythmically. Only here we see precisely what needs to be corrected in recitation and declamation in our time – in our somewhat unartistic time – namely that it must accompany the other form of expression of eurythmy. The real poet already has something rhythmic, something metrical, something thematic, something imaginative in the way he shapes language, in his use of language. Schiller, for example, based every poem on an indefinite melodiousness before he had the literal words, and Goethe on an indefinite imaginativeness.

Those who cannot trace every poetic work back to either a musical or a pictorial element cannot truly appreciate the artistic nature of poetry. But this already lies as a secret eurythmy, as it were an invisible eurythmy, at the basis of recitation and declamation, if it is to appear as a legitimate artistic form. Therefore, recitation and declamation must also appear here in such a way that the main emphasis is not placed on the literal meaning, on the prose content, on the emphasis of the prose content – as is done in an unartistic way today – but on the speech formation, on the rhythmic, metrical, thematic aspects, on the way one speaks, not on the emphasis of what one speaks.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my initial comment on the artistic nature of eurythmy. In this way, it is easy to present poetic epics and lyrics – very easy indeed. In drama, we see how eurythmy – because it allows for a higher degree of stylization than the usual mimicry of acting – can be used when the stage depicts not only naturalistic scenes from everyday life, the sensory world, but also events in which the human connection with the spiritual, supersensible world is revealed. It is precisely that which encompasses the relationship of the human being, the human soul, with the supersensible world that requires a stylization that cannot be achieved with ordinary, naturalistic stage art. Then one sees how eurythmy, in its lawful stylization, in the stylization that, like language itself, is drawn from the human organism, how this eurythmy can express the dramatic-super-sensible. Today we will only be able to present a small scene from one of my “mystery dramas.” But you may be able to see from this how it is possible to bring something like this to life with eurythmy. We will show how a number of human souls actually dreamt what these souls had absorbed from all kinds of mysticism, all kinds of supersensible knowledge, and the like. For what supersensible knowledge is can pass into human souls with inner truthfulness and liveliness. But this requires that one approach these supersensible insights with inner truthfulness, inner honesty, and inner sincerity. One must first cultivate these qualities. I would say that this is precisely the ideal of anthroposophical education: to cultivate full inner truthfulness, inner honesty, and sincerity.

On the way there, some souls, who are otherwise quite good, who are otherwise quite benign, present themselves in such a way that, either out of a certain sentimentality or a certain inner untruthfulness, they do take in what comes to light in supersensible knowledge, but they do not take it in other than, one might say, with a certain lifelessness. They are not fully moved by it; in a certain sense, they are only dreaming because they find a kind of pleasure in it. One must be clear, I would say with a certain irony, about how untruthful those souls can become, especially those who have not yet cultivated this truthfulness, how untruthful they can become, untruthful to themselves, when they take in something like supersensible knowledge. Such souls are presented here, souls of the most diverse inner nuances. And these souls are then confronted by that figure who actually represents everything that is pedantic in human beings, everything that drags human beings down into, I would say, the heaviness of the world. When one has such a whole choir of more or less honest, but also more or less dishonest mystical souls, then one can depict how that which pulls people down finds joy and satisfaction in it, how precisely that which otherwise acts in people in such a way that it binds them to the earth can also act in those souls who want to fly away from the earth, so to speak, in a certain untruthful and insincere mysticism. This is definitely something that represents the inner soul in human beings, their relationship to the supersensible. And this scene — taken from one of my “Mystery Dramas” — is to be performed today in eurythmic representation.

In this Ahriman, one will find something like a figure reminiscent of Goethe's Mephistopheles. But the Ahriman figure runs through all periods of human spiritual development and can also be felt in our time. One might say: it is the spiritual figure that takes pleasure and benefit from souls that are seemingly quite deep, quite mystical, quite occult, but are not actually truthful.

That is the artistic side. Eurythmy has two other sides. A therapeutic-medical side as healing eurythmy: the forms of movement that you see performed artistically here are transformed, metamorphosed, so that they have a directly healing and hygienic effect on the human organism. This curative eurythmy is also already being taught. And since everything that is demonstrated and achieved in eurythmic movements comes entirely from healthy human nature, curative eurythmy can also exist and can be taught as such.

The third aspect is the pedagogical-didactic one. At the Waldorf School founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart, which I run, we have eurythmy as a compulsory subject in all elementary school classes alongside gymnastics, as a kind of soulful, spiritual gymnastics. In ordinary gymnastics, only what follows from the human physical organism is translated into movement. In eurythmy, one deals with movements that follow from the whole human being, from the body, soul, and spirit of the human being, and can be shaped from there. And the way in which [the children] find their way into eurythmy in the Waldorf school from the beginning of elementary school age up to the highest grades—just as just as younger children naturally find their way into spoken language with inner satisfaction – shows that eurythmy is something thoroughly healthy and something that is intimately connected with human development – quite apart from the fact that it is clear how the child's initiative of will and soul can be particularly encouraged. And in our time, which makes life so difficult — and future times will make this life even more difficult — people truly need this soul initiative, this initiative of the will. One can see how this initiative of the will can be promoted under the influence of this eurythmic teaching in education and instruction. I could say a great deal more about this pedagogical and didactic aspect of eurythmy, but I can only hint at it here.

When one considers, ladies and gentlemen, that eurythmy does not use an external tool like the other arts, but the human being itself as a tool, and that [the eurythmic gestures] are not merely random gestures [which] the performing arts add to language, but how, just as in language, they reveal something deeply inner and mysterious that lies within the human being – just as in eurythmy something that lies within the whole human being is mysteriously and lawfully formed – then one can appreciate that eurythmy really has unlimited possibilities for development.

We are our own strictest critics. We know exactly what objections are still being raised against eurythmy today. And we will never be surprised by some of the critics. But it must be said that, as much as we still have to ask for forgiveness and forbearance from those who watch – and I am doing that before you today – on the other hand, anyone who truly penetrates the innermost spirit of eurythmy is inclined to believe that what is still in its infancy today can continue to develop further and further, because the human being itself is used as the instrument for the art of eurythmy.

When Goethe says of art in general that it is based on being placed at the summit of nature, taking order, measure, harmony, and meaning from nature in order to rise from the formation of measure, harmony, order, and meaning to the creation of the work of art, then one must say: if human beings look out from their own organism—and eurythmy – measure, order, and meaning from the individual aspects of his being, then, because man contains all the laws of the world within himself, because he is truly a small world, a microcosm in relation to the large world, then that which underlies the mysterious laws of the world must be expressed precisely through this eurythmy, through the moving forms of the organism, the human organism. And we can therefore hope that, because this eurythmy truly makes use of the human being – that is, the highest instrument that human beings can have – it will continue to develop further and further and will ultimately be able to stand alongside its older sister arts as a younger but fully-fledged art form in its own right.