The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 11 February 1923, Dornach

Eurythmy Performance

Draft announcement and newspaper advertisement for the performance

“Rêve” by Victor Hugo with music by Jan Stuten
“Des Engels Flügelschlag” (The Angel's Wingbeat) by Albert Steffen
“Prelude op. 28,15 (Raindrops)” by Frédéric Chopin
“Die Seele, fremd” (The Soul, Strange) by Albert Steffen
“Feuerrotes Fohlen” (Fire-Red Foal) by Albert Steffen
Allegro in E-flat major, Op. 7 by L. v. Beethoven
“Samurai” by Jose Maria de Heredia Minuet in G major by L. v. Beethoven “Das Verhängnis” (The Doom) by Fercher von Steinwand “Auf leichten Füßen” (On Light Feet) by Christian Morgenstern Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 by Frédéric Chopin “Mein Kind” by Heinrich Heine
‘Valet’ by J. W. v. Goethe
Scherzo in A major, Op. 2 by L. v. Beethoven
“Die wirklich praktischen Leute” by Christian Morgenstern

Ladies and gentlemen!

Eurythmy should neither be a mimetic art, a mere art of gesture, nor should it be a dance-like art. You will see on stage – accompanied by recitation and declamation and accompanied by music – moving individuals or groups of people. But what is performed by the individual in eurythmy, especially through the movement of the most expressive organs — the arms and hands or other parts of the human organism — or by groups of people, is something to which ordinary gestures, which we also make when speaking normally, are related in the same way as a child's babbling is related to the developed, articulate speech of human beings.

When we watch a somewhat more lively person speaking, we find that, unless they have been trained not to do so, they accompany their speech with all kinds of gestures. We see gestures used for affirmation, we see gestures used for negation, we see gestures used when this or that feeling comes into play, when this or that feeling accompanies the content of our speech, and when we want to indicate this feeling in an even more expressive way than through the nuances of language itself. Through these ordinary gestures, which are also used in the art of mimicry, one actually only indicates what permeates language in terms of emotional or volitional impulses.

But if we apply what Goethe calls sensual-supersensory vision, I would say that we can develop this “gestural babbling” into what is now known as eurythmy. Human beings actually accompany linguistic expression inwardly with their whole soul, and in some circumstances, I would say, with their whole body – both when listening to language and when speaking themselves. Human beings accompany what they experience with soul impulses that they can basically feel in their whole body if they can apply the necessary attention to such things.

But one can also study – as I said, through supersensible observation – how these inner movements of the soul in human beings flow into the movements that the larynx transforms into air movements, which then become audible. In a sense, one can trace what comes out of the human being in speech or singing back into the human organism itself. Then one arrives at a developed, visible language, not just the gestural babbling that is present in the art of mimicry.

One comes to realize that just as a certain sound that is heard is the expression of something that the soul feels but is no longer aware of, so too can a movement of the human organism express the same thing that is felt, for example, when a person feels compelled to express something through the sound of “i” or “a.” Or, conversely, one can find certain forms of movement that can parallel the sensation, the feeling, when speaking consonants. In this way, just as the small child consciously and unconsciously develops articulated speech through imitation and singing, so too can visible speech and visible singing be developed, as is the case in eurythmy. Then, in the same artistic-human sense as the tonal-phonetic in singing or speech signifies the inner life of the soul, not in an abstract intellectual way, but in an artistic-human way, any movement means exactly the same as what is experienced in the ;, in the a, and so on, as the tone or sound means, and one obtains a truly visible language or a truly visible singing.

When music is played and eurythmized to it, one does not have dancing, but one has visible singing. And it is precisely in this visible singing that one can notice the difference between eurythmy and mere dance. Mere dance pours emotion and passion into human movement, even if this is no longer known in certain dances that are more nobly formed. But the eurythmic, which appears in movement, parallel to music, is visible singing. These are movements that express tempo, rhythm, melody, even the individual interval, the individual tone, just like singing itself.

And it is the same when, parallel to declamation and recitation, what appears as eurythmic movements, as visible language on the stage, is performed by individuals or groups of people. Eurythmy is actually already contained in the artistic treatment of language by the real poet. In the artistic treatment of language by the true poet, the prosaic nature of the poem's content has actually receded completely. It is not important that a poet reveals only prose put into verse, so to speak, but rather how he expresses himself imaginatively – that is, figuratively – in his treatment of language, or, I would say musically, in time, in rhythm, in the melodious theme of language, how he expresses what he wants to express in his use of language. Let's take a simple poem as an example:

Above all peaks there is peace
In all the treetops you can feel<
Barely a breath. The birds are silent in the forest Just wait a little while And you too will be at peace.

What matters here is not that it expresses “Above all peaks there is peace...”, but that the treatment is pictorial in its sound. For Goethe, the treatment of language is always imaginative, so that what weaves and flows in nature outside—for example, in a poem like this one—also weaves and flows pictorially. It is not important that I express the tranquility in the peaks, but rather that the syllables flow and undulate in such tranquility, just like that which lives outside in nature:

Above all peaks there is tranquility
In all the treetops you feel
Barely a breath.

One might say: the same tranquil atmosphere that echoes from the forest also echoes from the succession and interplay of sounds, colors, and hues of the syllables. This is already evident in the poet's actual use of language.

But this eurythmy is hidden; this eurythmy must be brought out by the reciter, the declaimer. However, what lies hidden there as cine eurythmy can only be revealed through the treatment of language. Then whatever is possible—the vocal coloring of the individual, the coloring of the individual by the whole, of one by the other—will be developed in this visible language of eurythmy and will be able to appear visibly before people. This is then artistic activity through the visible language or through the visible singing of eurythmy.

One cannot therefore declaim and recite eurythmy in the way that is popular today, even if in individual cases one has already moved away from emphasizing the prose content in a particularly pointed way. We must return to the old, good art of recitation, which was always present in all earlier periods of true artistic development, and which Goethe, for example, still used when he rehearsed his iambic dramas himself, baton in hand, like a conductor. We must rediscover what Schiller himself experienced when, before he had a poem, before he had what he wanted to express poetically, he had the form of an indefinite melody in his soul. And only afterwards, once he had this melodious theme, did Schiller arrange the prose content of the poem according to the musical motifs. And so, in the manner popular today, one could not possibly declaim and recite in eurythmy. That is why this special art of declamation and recitation was redeveloped among us, which some people still do not find entirely appealing today, but to which they will become accustomed again when they appreciate the true artistry of poetry, which lies not in the prose content but in the language formation, when they appreciate this again in the right way.

And so, through eurythmy, what lies in a poem or a piece of music can indeed be expressed in a certain way, just as it can be expressed through singing and spoken language. The only difference is that in singing and spoken language, the intellectual element is involved. And actually, the poet is always struggling, because he has to use words that come into being in sound, in tone; he is always struggling against the unartistic nature of thought. The element of thought is always something unartistic. This unartistic element is absent in the visible language and visible singing of eurythmy. What is present in it is primarily what is experienced emotionally in a poem or also volitionally in a poem, and therefore what is truly artistic.

Schopenhauer saw the will as the truly artistic element in human beings. He expressed this in abstract terms. I would say that eurythmy provides the practical application of this. While in poetry one still has to struggle to ensure that the thought does not come to the fore too much, but rather the linguistic form of the thought, eurythmy actually gives everything that the poet wants to give, everything that he carries within himself, as long as the poem does not overflow into spoken language. One might say that this can be felt particularly through eurythmy: What Schiller meant when he said: “When the soul speaks, alas, it is no longer the soul that speaks.” The soul has something much more inner; it is much more innerly connected with its whole physical being. Recitation and declamation, when they feel this inner quality, can indeed bring the hidden eurythmic into the nuances of language. But this hidden eurythmic element can also be incorporated into the movements of individuals or groups of people – and in this way something very similar is consciously achieved to what happens unconsciously during childhood in spoken language and in singing.

Well, my dear audience, today—as always—I would like to ask for your indulgence, because we know very well that the art of eurythmy is still in its infancy. But it uses the human being as its instrument. Just compare eurythmy with what it can be compared to, with sculpture, with the art of sculpting. There you have an external material. You can depict the resting human being, in a sense only the silent human being in his or her inner life, not really the moving human being. In eurythmy, when you depict the moving human being through the external movement of the body, the inner movement of the soul comes to light. Since the human being is a microcosm, containing all the secrets of the world, we may hope that this most perfect instrument, which is used nowhere else as an artistic instrument except in eurythmy, will enable the art of eurythmy to become more and more perfect, so that it may one day stand alongside the other, already fully recognized sister arts. We know that this is not yet the case today, but we also know the immeasurably great possibilities for development that lie in eurythmy; therefore, we believe that this will once again be the case in the future.

We have three parts in the program. After the Beethoven minuet, there will be a short break of about five minutes, then “Das Verhängnis” (The Doom) will follow.