The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1920–1922

GA 277c — 30 September 1922, Dornach

Eurythmy Address

The performance took place in the dome room of the Goetheanum.

Poster for the performance

Ladies and gentlemen!

Allow me to say a few words about our eurythmic experiment. Eurythmic art should not be confused with mimetic or dance-like arts, because its gestures are not, I would say, directly and spontaneously connected with the underlying poetry or music; rather, eurythmy is a truly visible language. And just as spoken language or singing are not immediate gestures, but are born out of the whole human organism in its lawfulness, so too is this the case with eurythmy.

On stage, you will see moving individuals or groups of people. In a certain sense, this can be called gesturing. However, the gestures come about through sensual-supersensory perception, which recognizes the underlying tendencies of movement when the human being pours his entire soul, his feelings, his will into every movement of the larynx and its neighboring organs, which then expand in singing or in spoken language, which merge into singing, in speech, into small, delicate vibrating movements, which then, by communicating with the air, convey hearing. So these movements are not the issue, but rather they are the basis, which do not come to light in ordinary speech or singing, which, I would say, are restrained, held back, but which are internally present in terms of their predisposition. And these movements, which are present in the predisposition, are brought out of the human organism as naturally as the movements of the larynx and its neighboring organs in singing and speaking.

Eurythmy is therefore a truly visible language that can be shaped artistically—only now for the eye, not for the ear—just like music or poetry in recitation or declamation. We then try to [adapt] the entire stage design to this [representation with our eurythmy]. Those esteemed audience members who have seen eurythmy some time ago will notice how, for some time now, attempts have been made to design the lighting effects in a eurythmic sense – both the lighting effects that flood the room and the coordination of the lighting with the color of the clothing and veils of the eurythmists. This creates a kind of moving or shifting flood of light, which in turn represents a visible language.

Therefore, one cannot judge eurythmy in the same way as one judges ordinary mimicry, relating individual gestures to individual expressions of the soul, but must consider the sequence of movements and view them in much the same way as one listens to melody or harmony in music. What matters in this visible language, which is then developed as an art form, is the relationship between the movements and [the] movements in their sequence and in their spatial harmony.

Therefore, when eurythmy is accompanied by recitation and declamation, as you will hear here, the recitation and declamation themselves must already contain what is hidden in all true poetry, I would say the inner eurythmy in the sound formation, in the visualization of the sound forms, and the melodious, the rhythmic, the rhythmic in the language from the poetry. In our time, which is less artistic than other ages, people love to emphasize the prose content of poetry in recitation. Goethe himself rehearsed his iambic dramas with a baton in his hand, like a conductor with his actors.

This is what needs to be considered, because in this respect eurythmy will in turn have an effect on the artistic treatment of recitation and declamation as we practice it here. In this way, both recitation and declamation can be accompanied, as can instrumental music. For through this visible form of expression, as presented by eurythmy, one can sing as visibly as one can otherwise hear. Likewise, one can express what is actually the inner, the actual artistic content of a poem. It is precisely through eurythmic representation that one can primarily sense something that the poet does not need, because he wants to express himself through language: a prose content, something that he expresses. Only what is expressed in this way, as the prose writer expresses himself, can actually be considered for poetry as a ladder on which one climbs in order to unfold the actual artistic effects, artistic creations. The actual poetic-artistic is only what one makes from thoughts, feelings, and impulses of the will.

And this must be pursued even when reciting and declaiming. So that, in a sense, even for the reciter, the prose content is only an opportunity to seek out all the wonderful possibilities of how one sound is formed into another and, in a sense, to unfold something melodious and also imaginative and pictorial in the flow of sounds. The artistic lies in something quite different from the prosaic, where it is so often sought today – which stands there only as something that underlies the actual poetry like a fabric, like a material. In eurythmy itself, in this spirit of eurythmy, in the gesture and in the shaping of the gesture, what I would call purely an external shaping of the sound and tone of the reciter and the beginners [?] in eurythmy is actually represented directly for the eye. So that the innermost nerve, the whole innermost structure that inspires the poetic artist, that fires the poetic artist, actually transports him into his poetic-artistic life, so that this can really be conjured up before the eye in the moving images of eurythmy. This makes eurythmy a moving sculpture that expresses the weaving of the soul, while ordinary sculpture, which must remain in a static form, can express the silence of the soul, the continuous silence of the soul.

This leads to a higher level of stylization, and you will see for yourselves, perhaps especially in the first part of our performances, that where the relationship of the human soul to the supersensible is to be depicted, as in the scene of sorrow in the second part of “Faust,” which will be presented today in the first part, in the first section of our performances, that there, in particular, the higher stylization that is possible in eurythmy can have a completely different effect than mere naturalistic mimicry, mere naturalistic characterization, which only seeks to momentarily match the gestures with what the soul expresses.

Of course, in drama, what takes place only in the earthly realm, what lives only in the sensory world, must be represented through the ordinary art of mimicry. You will therefore see that Faust, who is simply the Faust of the sensory world, is portrayed here in a purely naturalistic manner in the scene that will immediately unfold before you, but that the four gray women who approach him to test his soul — to show him his guilt or his inner innocence, his experiences and inner results, the hardship, the worry, the guilt, the fear – that these four gray women, who have so much to portray in Goethe's entire second part of “Faust,” come into their own when expressed in the language of eurythmy. There is a higher stylization of the supersensible that approaches human beings. And this does not have to be portrayed naturalistically, but in a higher sense, in a theatrical manner.

That is the artistic side. There is also a therapeutic side to eurythmy. This therapeutic eurythmy is used in our institutes in Arlesheim and Stuttgart. It is not the same as what is performed here on stage, but rather something that has been transformed. And because eurythmy as a whole arises from the whole of human nature, is drawn from the whole of human nature, it can also be transformed so that it can even serve hygienic and therapeutic purposes.

A third aspect is the pedagogical-didactic side. At the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, we have therefore introduced this eurythmy as a soulful and spiritual form of gymnastics for children of all grades during their school years and beyond. And it has become quite clear that children enter into this eurythmy, this soulful gymnastics, and grow into it with the same naturalness of their soul life as they grow into spoken language at a younger stage of their lives, as very small children. This soulful gymnastics even has a particularly strong effect on morality and initiative, strengthening and fortifying the will. It has become clear that eurythmy can be used as an excellent pedagogical and didactic tool.

As always, I would like to ask for your indulgence. We are our own strictest critics; we know that eurythmy is still in its infancy and that many aspects of it are still imperfect. However, we are working on perfecting it, and we know that it has great potential for development. Precisely because the human being himself, with his living organism, precisely because of what lies within his own organism, because the human being as such is the tool, the living tool for this art, it must be capable of immeasurable perfection. Because all the secrets of the universe are contained in him in miniature, because man is truly a microcosm, and because, if one brings out everything, as is done in eurythmy, as happens in eurythmy, then all the secrets of the cosmos can be revealed through it. And if, as Goethe says, art is brought forth by man placing himself at the summit of nature, taking order, measure, harmony, and meaning together in order to produce a summit within himself and rise to the production of the work of art, then something particularly artistic must emerge when man brings forth order, measure, and meaning from within themselves, from the infinite creative possibilities of this microcosm, this small world that they themselves are, when they draw art from it in order to bring it to revelation. So we can hope that eurythmy—as imperfect as it still is today—will one day be able to stand alongside the other, older arts as a fully-fledged art form thanks to its immeasurable potential for development.