The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 14 January 1923, Dornach

Eurythmy Performance

Newspaper announcement for the performance

Scene of the gray women from “Faust II,” Act 5 (midnight), with music by Jan Stuten
Ghost choir from “Faust I,” study, by J. W. v. Goethe “Funeral March” by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
“Christmas” by Vladimir Solovyov
Pastoral in G major from the Christmas Oratorio by J. S. Bach
“Epiphany” by Jose Maria de Heredia
“Repos en Egypte” by Albert Samain
Allegro in E-flat major, Op. 7, by L. van Beethoven
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “Notturno in White”; ‘Rehearsal’; “The Priestess”; “The Two Bottles”; “The Finger”

Ladies and gentlemen!

Allow me, as usual before these eurythmic performances, to say a few words about the nature of the sources of eurythmic art. Eurythmy should not be confused with dance or mime. Without, of course, wishing to say anything derogatory about these related arts, it must be emphasized that eurythmy aims to be something fundamentally different. It seeks to make use of a truly visible language, which is expressed through the movements of individuals or groups of people, in the case of individuals preferably through the movement of the most expressive limbs, the arms and hands. Human soul experiences, as expressed in particular in poetry, can be revealed externally through spoken language, through singing, but now also through what we here call eurythmic language.

If we start from spoken language, we find in it an expression of the human organism, an expression of both what lives in the human being as will and what lives in the human being as imagination. It is the case that the whole human being is actually involved in what is expressed through spoken language. All unconscious or subconscious soul activity, everything that wants to come out of the human being in terms of organic activity, is essentially suppressed – except for what is revealed in the larynx and other speech organs.

If one now studies through sensory-supersensory observation — Goethe used this expression, and it may be used here in particular within the anthroposophical worldview — if one studies through sensory-supersensory observation how, in speech, I would say the expressions of the human head, the imaginative on the one hand and the volitional on the other, how this affects the human vocal organs, what comes from both sides; when one then studies how these original movements, which human beings actually make not only when speaking but also when listening, come to a standstill, how human beings calm down, so to speak, and everything that the soul wants to reveal flows into the speech organs, then transforms itself into the movements of air that convey hearing — when one studies this, then one can also transfer everything that is revealed here in the speech organs back to the whole human being. And then one obtains a real language that comes about solely through movements of the human limbs, mainly the arms and hands.

Modern physiology already recognizes the dependence of the speech nervous system on the limb system. It is known that in the average person today, the right arm and right hand are more strongly developed. Accordingly, the speech center is to be found in the left side of the head, because these forces always cross in the human organism. Thus, modern science already shows us a certain connection that can be expressed as follows: What a person initially wants to express in an indefinite way in their right arm, through mimicry, is transformed in the brain, becomes speech formation, and is then transferred to the speech system.

Now, what one uses in ordinary speech, what one even uses in the art of mimicry, is to what eurythmy aims to be as a child's babbling is to truly developed, articulated speech. For what is sought in the whole human being is that which is soul-related, and the human soul also lives in the whole human organism. And just as spiritual experiences can be heard through language, through spoken language, so too can spiritual experiences be revealed visibly through certain movements in individuals or groups of people. This is so regular that every sound corresponds to a specific form of movement, every turn of phrase. In short, everything linguistic also corresponds to a movement in the human being.

This does not mean that one must consciously think about the meaning of every movement that is performed. Art must have an immediate effect; it must be absorbed by the soul through feeling, without first receiving an intellectual explanation. This is also the case with eurythmy. What is offered eurythmically should first and foremost follow the lines of beauty, character, feeling, will, and so on. The general impression is what one must have first. Only those who, I would say, have to work out eurythmy technically must draw it out of the human organism in just the same way as speech is drawn out by nature in early childhood. In this way, eurythmy presents individual people or groups of people to the audience; the movements that occur in them are a language. It can be used to express poetry.

It is clear that when a person reveals themselves through one system, they cannot reveal themselves through another system at the same time, so that when a poem is expressed eurythmically through the movements of a person, that person cannot speak at the same time. This would be perceived as an overload of human activity. Therefore, we must see eurythmy here in such a way that poems are recited or declaimed and at the same time the poem is performed on stage in the visible language of eurythmy. This results in a special kind of, I would say, orchestral interaction between the art of recitation and declamation and eurythmy.

Similarly, one can bring something musically, and just as one can sing audibly, one can sing visibly. And it is particularly important in this area to distinguish between what eurythmy can achieve musically and what the art of dance can achieve. The art of dance leads via music into an element where the human being, in a sense, loses his soul in his limbs. In eurythmy, he retains his entire soul. The soul lives in the human being himself. Therefore, what is presented eurythmically to music is not dancing to music, but singing in movement. It is therefore actually visible singing, not dancing. Once you feel this, you will also feel the essence of eurythmy – which should be neither pantomime, mimicry nor dance – in the right way.

However, in the eurythmic representation of poetry, one will also see how recitation must be led back to its earlier, better forms through eurythmy. For in what the poet feels when he struggles linguistically to express something spiritual, there already lies a mysterious eurythmy. And therefore, recitation and declamation must also seek out this mystery of eurythmy in speech formation. Recitation and declamation must therefore, on the one hand, be musical, taking into account meter, rhythm, and even the melodious element in speech formation, and on the other hand, the pictorial-imaginative, the plastic element in sound formation. Not by emphasizing the prose content, as is customary today – we are, after all, in a somewhat inartistic age – but by focusing on what is truly artistic in a poem, the speech formation, we arrive at a true art of declamation and recitation, which we have endeavored to develop, especially in accompaniment with eurythmy, to which it is not as easy to declaim and recite as one might think, for it really involves an orchestral attunement to eurythmy.

What eurythmy can achieve in terms of a higher stylization of what appears on stage can be seen particularly when drama is performed eurythmically. Today you will see a rehearsal of a scene from Goethe's “Faust,” Part II: the scene with Sorrow and the other gray women—Poverty, Guilt, Misery—who approach Faust. You will see how Faust appears in a naturalistic manner, as is customary on stage, but how the figures who actually carry Faust's soul experiences over into the supersensible can be stylized in just the right way for the stage when they are presented recitatively and only the language of movement, the visible language of eurythmy, is allowed to take effect on stage. This is precisely what eurythmy can achieve in the dramatic field: where the human soul rises to the supersensible, this supersensible experience is given eurythmically, while everything that a person experiences with both feet firmly on the ground, as is the case with Faust, must of course be presented in a naturalistic stage style. And you will see how, on the one hand, Faust appears naturalistically on stage, and on the other hand, the four gray women appear in eurythmic stylization. Eurythmic stylization elevates a poem such as Faust to such heights that it should actually have a supersensible, ethereal effect.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, as I always do before such a performance, I would like to ask for your indulgence. Eurythmy is only in its infancy and will certainly need a great deal more before it can be considered a complete art form. But it uses human beings themselves as its instrument. And when Goethe uttered the beautiful words: “To whom nature begins to reveal her secrets, they long for her most worthy interpreter, art” — then we can also say: Those to whom nature begins to reveal the secrets of the human organism, which is a small world in itself, may feel a longing to see the secrets of the world brought forth from the human organism, from the whole human organism, as is the case with eurythmy. Therefore, we may believe that, however imperfect eurythmy still is today, it will, even if only after a long time — perhaps still through us, but more likely through others — because it has unlimited potential for development, it will be able to develop over time into a fully-fledged art alongside the older fully-fledged arts.