The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 6 May 1922, Dornach

Address on eurythmy

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

Harmonious opening with music by Max Schuurman
“Schwing Dich auf die Sattelflügel” (Swing Yourself onto the Saddle Wings) by Albert Steffen
Fugue by J. S. Bach
“Wie die Blumen im Garten stehen” (Like the flowers in the garden) by Albert Steffen
Prelude by J.S. Bach
“Tage der Wonne” (Days of delight) by J. W. v. Goethe
“Kein Hälmchen” (Not a blade of grass) by Friedemann Bach
“Perse et Andromede I, II, III” by J. Heredia
“Der Rabe Ralph” (The Raven Ralph) by Christian Morgenstern
“Der Erfrorene” (The Frozen Man) by Rudolf Steiner
“Igel und Agel” (Hedgehog and Agel) by Christian Morgenstern
Minuet by L. v. Beethoven
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “Die Tapetenblume” (The Wallpaper Flower); “Der Papagei” (The Parrot); “Das Hemmed” (The Hemmed)

Ladies and gentlemen! If I may take the liberty of introducing our eurythmic performance with a few words, it is not to explain what is to be presented artistically. For art must work directly on the viewer's perception and understanding without explanation. But what we call eurythmy is based on artistic principles that are unfamiliar to us and also makes use of artistic means of expression that are equally unfamiliar, a special formal language. And I would like to say a few words about this formal language and its foundations.

What you see on stage will be moving individuals, moving groups of people, and so on. These are not gestures that are added arbitrarily or according to a general feeling to what they are supposed to reveal—a poetic-artistic creation or a musical-vocal creation. It is not a form of sign language, nor is it mimicry or pantomime, nor is it any kind of dance art, but rather eurythmy is a truly visible language.

This visible language is found in the way that the human organism is listened to, what it initially accomplishes externally, invisibly, but internally with all its strength when it sings or speaks. What the human organs of speech and singing receive, so to speak, in the inner movements of the whole organism and then translate into their own movements, which in turn are transformed into vibrations in the air, through which the tone or sound, the word, is heard: This is what is explored through sensory-supersensory observation and then transferred to the whole human being, to the movements of the whole human being or even to the movements of groups of people, thereby achieving a truly visible language. It is therefore not a matter of wanting to perceive how this or that arm movement, just like everyday gestures or facial expressions, arises from this or that sound. Rather, there is an inner organic connection between what becomes visible to the eye as movements, just as there is an inner organic connection between the sound, the self-sound or co-sound that is uttered, or even the phrases that are formed and the like, and what lives in the soul.

Therefore, one will not do justice to eurythmy if one merely relates a single gesture or a complex of gestures to something that is recited or played, but one does justice to eurythmy only if, just as in music one sees the artistic in the sequence, in the temporal arrangement of the tones, one sees the artistic in eurythmy in the temporal arrangement, in the successive arrangement of the movements. Of course, what eurythmy is first and foremost is a visible language — and artistically, it must first be developed in each individual case. This applies in general to the basis of eurythmy. However, its artistic means of expression are already indicated: it is the entire human organism. The human arms and hands are particularly important because they are the means by which the soul expresses itself most fully. So if some people think they see too many arm and hand movements, they have not understood what eurythmy is really about.

This seems to add a real art form to the other art forms. First of all, we are dealing with what I would call the artistic opposite, but at the same time the artistic complement to sculpture, to the art of sculpting, insofar as it deals with human beings. Sculpture captures human silence, in a sense, and we must always feel that when we have created something sculpturally, we have embodied silence. By setting the human form in motion – we can of course only do this with the living human form – we express the speech of the soul, and in this respect eurythmy is indeed a complementary contrast to sculpture.

But eurythmy also fits into the audible arts, in that it forms a kind of complement to them as a visible language. When we consider the human soul as it relates to the outside world, we are first of all concerned with the fact that we have a certain relationship with the outside world in our sensations and feelings. We can artistically shape what lives within our feelings – and we shape it in music and song. Our feelings live primarily in artistically shaped sound. When we artistically shape the external expression of our feelings, which have now been taken up by our ideas, we arrive at poetry. Poetry is artistically shaped language, and language is essentially that which, in addition to feelings, takes on the life of the imagination.

But apart from our feelings and our language and our ideas, we also have a fundamentally different relationship with the outside world, namely through perception itself. When we open our senses to the outside world, we first have our sensory perceptions, but also what we experience in the things themselves – not through ideas, nor through feelings, but by surrendering ourselves to the sensory world. This, too, can be artistically expressed, but only through what emerges as movement in the whole human being.

We can therefore say: the intimate world of feelings, which actually only, I would say, bashfully reveals itself in human beings when, for example, they turn pale under the impression of fear, when they blush under the impression of shame, that is, the inner world of feelings, which only appears intimately in the outer organism of the human being through redness or paleness or even through the bristling of the hair when it is stronger, is a kind of world that, when artistically shaped, reveals itself in music.

What a person experiences in their imagination is revealed in everyday life when they express it through spoken language. Artistically crafted spoken language is revealed in recitation and declamation, which are audible only externally. But that which is not the intimacy of their feelings, not the inner penetration of their thoughts and ideas, which is communicated in words, but that which lives outside, the colors, the sensory phenomena of the world in general, that is what human beings can then shape more from within themselves. In music, what emerges only very timidly must, in a sense, be shaped. In language, what otherwise lives inwardly in thoughts is shaped. But our interaction with the outside world through our senses can be shaped by setting the whole human being in motion, in such a way that these movements are as expressive as the sounds of language itself. And this is precisely what should be achieved through the language of eurythmy. So that eurythmy joins the musical-vocal and the poetic-recitative as a third art form, complementing these audible arts, just as it is a kind of contrast to the art of sculpture, but one that in turn has a complementary effect.

So this eurythmy, I would say, fits into our arts, and one can already see that it has a certain justification arising from the whole essence of the human being. One can also certainly find that there is already an inner eurythmy in what the poet creates in the poetic treatment of language. Therefore, one cannot—you will be able to follow this when we present poetry eurythmically—therefore, one cannot recite and declaim in the way that is often popular today in an unartistic age, preferring to emphasize the prosaic nature of poetry. Instead, one must express the tact, rhythm, musical themes, or imagery that lie in the poetic form and treatment of language, especially in recitation and declamation. That is why today there is widespread misunderstanding about how recitation should actually be done. I would say that recitation for eurythmy must be musical and imaginative, not pointed. This is something that would have been obvious in more artistic ages than ours. I must mention again and again how Goethe himself rehearsed his iambic dramas with his actors not merely in terms of their prose content, but musically—in terms of their rhythmic structure—with a baton, like a conductor.

That is all about the artistic side of eurythmy. It also has two other sides, which I would like to mention briefly. First, we have the therapeutic, medical, hygienic side. The movements that come to the fore in eurythmy emerge from the whole human organism. Here you will see artistic eurythmy, but there are movements that are metamorphosed and yet different from what appears here in the artistic realm. Movements can also be drawn out of the organism that then have healing and hygienic effects. And that is something that is already being practiced within our movement: therapeutic eurythmy.

The third aspect is the pedagogical-didactic side of eurythmy. Eurythmy can be described as an artistic, soulful, and inspired form of gymnastics. It is not necessary to oppose gymnastics, which has its good sides but is overestimated today; I certainly do not want that to happen. But gymnastics is something that arises solely from human physiology, from the physical, from the body – and has its good effects there. But we can actually say – after having eurythmy as a compulsory subject for all children at the Waldorf School founded in Stuttgart, which has now been running for more than two years, from the age of six up to the age at which we have been able to teach it so far, up to 14, 15th year – that eurythmy, as a soulful, spiritual form of exercise, has a natural and beneficial effect on education and teaching.

The naturalness with which children find their way into this soulful exercise shows that it is drawn from the natural, healthy foundation of the human organism. Just as the younger child finds its way into language, into audible language, with inner satisfaction and inner comfort, because this must necessarily be a revelation of its organism, so the more mature child finds its way into eurythmy, which brings out further powers from its organism, as something completely natural. In particular, it is the initiative of the will that is trained exceptionally well through eurythmy, which cannot be trained through ordinary gymnastics – along with other forces in the human being. So that one can say: Eurythmy is an essential aid also in a pedagogical-didactic relationship and, as such, can certainly be used in today's education and teaching.

Certainly, everything that appears in the nature of eurythmy must first struggle through, I would say, all the prejudices that one naturally brings to such a thing from old assumptions. However, it should be pointed out again and again that eurythmy, as a tool, has something that offers a certain guarantee from the outset that it will gradually become accepted and recognized as a truly legitimate art form alongside the others.

For what makes something artistic? Goethe expressed this so beautifully from his own perspective, from his view of art, when he said, on the one hand: Art is a revelation of secret laws of nature that would never be revealed without it — that is, without art itself. And if there are laws of nature that human beings should observe with the utmost interest, it is the laws of nature that can manifest themselves in the human organism when they are visibly brought out of it. But this is precisely what happens through eurythmy. Not only is that which underlies the rest of nature artistically elevated, but also that which underlies human nature itself. On the other hand, Goethe says: When human beings are placed at the summit of nature, they feel themselves to be the whole of nature, taking in order, harmony, measure, and meaning, and rising to the creation of works of art.

Now, human beings, as they are organized, are actually a small world, a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm, the large world. They contain—if one can only discover this, then it becomes apparent—all the secrets, all the laws of the large world within themselves. Therefore, with eurythmy, one rises not only from nature to a higher nature by bringing together order, harmony, measure, and meaning from everything outside of humanity, but one also takes order, harmony, measure, and meaning from the human organization itself and thus lifts humanity—I would say in relation to its higher nature—out of itself. It is a secret human being who is hidden within the ordinary, revealed human being, who can step before the eyes of the spectator through the visible language of eurythmy.

And by making use of this most valuable instrument — not an external instrument, but this most valuable instrument, which already functions, albeit inadequately, in mimicry and in the art of acting, by making what is only I would say to a limited extent as an instrument, in the full sense of the word, the human nature itself, one may hope that eurythmy can be perfected further and further. Therefore, those who have become familiar with eurythmy certainly still have reason today to ask the audience for their indulgence, as I am doing here, because eurythmy is only in its infancy and must continue to develop. We are our own strictest critics and know how we must work from semester to semester in order to make further progress. But on the other hand, we also carry within us the hope that this artistic form of expression will become more and more perfect because it makes use of the most perfect instrument that can be had: the human organism itself.

And so we can hope that eurythmy will gradually establish itself as a fully-fledged younger art form alongside the other arts.