The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 1 April 1923, Dornach

Eurythmy Performance

Newspaper advertisement for the performances in Dornach on April 1 and 2, 1923

Program for the performances in Dornach, April 1 and 2

Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, by Frédéric Chopin
“Christmas” by Albert Steffen
“Die Seele, fremd” (The Soul, Alien) by Albert Steffen
“Die Geisterscharen” (The Ghosts) by Albert Steffen
Etude in A-flat major, Op. 25,1, by Frédéric Chopin
“Als wir auf der goldenen Insel” (When We Were on the Golden Island) by Albert Steffen
Allegro in E-flat major, Op. 7 by L. v. Beethoven
“Traumverwandlung” (Dream Transformation) by Josef Kitir
“Proteus” by Friedrich Hebbel
“Der Sänger” (The Singer) by J. W. v. Goethe
‘Sehnsucht’ (Longing) by Dschung Tsü with music by Jan Stuten
“Mein Kind” (My Child) by Heinrich Heine
“Slavonic Dance” by Antonín Dvořák
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “The Skirt”; “The Stone Family”; “Korf's Jokes”; “The Discarded Shotgun”; “Toilet Arts”
Minuet from Sonata Op. 78 by Franz Schubert

Address on Eurythmy, Dornach, April 1

Ladies and gentlemen!

The eurythmy that we are presenting to you in an experiment should not be confused with any of the related arts—with dance or the like, mime or pantomime. Not that there is anything wrong with these arts, but eurythmy seeks to draw on artistic sources that are still unknown today and to reveal itself through an artistic language of form that is also still somewhat unfamiliar today. Because this is the case, I would like to always preface these eurythmic experiments with a few words. Art should not really be explained; it should have an effect through direct observation. This is especially true of eurythmy. But today, a few words still need to be said about its sources and formal language.

As you will see, eurythmy involves moving individuals or groups of people. Human movements that are gestural, that take the form of gestures, thus come before our eyes. But these gestures, which are not mimicry or anything similar, are a truly visible language. And [they] are drawn out from an inner lawfulness of the human organism and from the relationship of the organism to the world — just like the language of sound, spoken language, or singing. Only they are brought forth from the organism in full consciousness, not in the unconscious way in which, for example, spoken language is brought forth. When we study spoken language in the human organism through sensory-supersensory observation, we also obtain a kind of gesture, ladies and gentlemen. In truth, everything that human beings put into the words of their language flows out of the whole human organism. And when we reveal what the soul and spirit experience in the physical body through the organization of speech or singing, we use the flow of breath to bring it into the direction of the human will. And it is essentially the stream of breath that we direct as it pours through the larynx and the other organs of speech and singing. We direct it in the same way that we direct our arm or our hand in a gesture.

Only, by handing over the experience of our soul, so to speak, to the exhaled air, which we release from ourselves, I would say slowly in a cohesive gesture or quickly in a pointed outward gesture. Added to this is what is poured into this gesture-like stream of air from the other pole of the human organism, the thinking pole, which has its tool in the brain. What is poured in there always forms, as it were, the cross-sections of what flows out of it in the most diverse lines, the cross-sections that then produce certain forms of vibration, which are then transmitted to the air and conveyed to the hearing.

So, whenever we are able to direct our sensory-supersensory vision to what is communicated to the air in speech and singing, as it emerges from our body, we can always see how, on the one hand, it tends, I would say, to "flow radially outwards from the human organism, to pierce the air pointedly or to round itself outwards, to spread out. We can always see this as composed of this radial air stream carried by the will and, on the other hand, of vibrations that essentially emerge from what develops as thoughts in the soul, is transmitted to the brain, and then inserted from the other side into the respiratory air stream. - Thus, in what I would like to call, if one observes it correctly, the air-like-bodily, yet also living in language and song, the volitional, the emotional in the human being, the thought-like-soul, flows together.

Now, the thought-like-soul is actually always the unartistic. The more thoughts there are in linguistic expression, the less artistic is what language produces. The poet therefore always struggles to remove as much as possible of the purely intellectual from his creations and to treat what he wants to reveal through language in such a way that the soul content does not appear in the form of thought — which is of course necessary, because one cannot express oneself through language without having thoughts — but the thought must be overcome in its particular effectiveness. What the poet uses to overcome this is, I would say, the reproduction of language in pictorial form, the imaginative shaping of language itself in the succession of sounds, words, rhymes, alliteration, and so on, or the interweaving of rhythmic, melodious, thematic elements—in other words, musical elements—into his language. This is then the volitional, that which, in a sense, resonates in the prose words as the actual poetic volitional.

Poetry has something to do with doing, not with thinking. This is already inherent in the word itself; the word itself clearly indicates what is right. This comes from the fact that the poet, who makes language his tool, feels what he wants to reveal in his whole being. It is only a prejudice that our soul is located somewhere in our organism. This is even a materialistic prejudice. In reality, our entire human organism is imbued with soul and spirit.

And conversely, what is experienced spiritually and inwardly is felt, I would say, through an inner reflection from the whole organism. When one experiences, I would say, one's “full humanity,” one simply cannot say: ‘I am showing this or that’ without quietly feeling a current in your right arm that extends to the tips of your index finger and through which you actually want to gesture what you are expressing verbally. The poet must, of course, suppress this and put what his entire organism wants to express into language. But all of this can be traced back, I would say, to the organization, to the moving organization of the human being. And that is how eurythmy came into being.

When a child learns to speak, language develops from a kind of babbling into what is then truly articulated language that expresses the content of the human soul. With regard to sign language, we actually remain at the babbling stage throughout our entire lives. Unless one is an extremely phlegmatic person, one always feels compelled in life to accompany what one wants to express with gestures. However, in certain countries today, it is not considered very elegant to accompany one's speech with many gestures. However, I would like to say that this is also connected with the fact that people no longer attach full value to their immediate humanity. Spirited people will always have a need to support their speech with gestures. Nevertheless, when it comes to sign language, people remain at the babbling stage. And basically, what actors develop on stage, for example, is still babbling with gestures. This must be taken into account if one wants to understand eurythmy in the right way.

Eurythmy is about transitioning into a completely artistically perfected form of gesture, just as babbling transitions into the artistically perfected language of humans. So anyone who confuses mere mimicry with eurythmy is simply expressing that they have not yet understood the development from babbling gestures to fully developed speech through gestures. But then, through eurythmy, what the poet puts into artistically treated language is taken back into the whole human being. Therefore, we can see how precisely that which is true for the true, artistic poet – for there are very few real, true poetic artists among all those who engage in poetry – that which the real poetic artist wrings from language, wrings in an inner, I would like to say “secret eurythmy,” can in turn be transferred back into the movements of individual people or groups of people. Then, through eurythmy, we can see what the poet has actually experienced inwardly, which he had to hold back within himself because he had to use language, while he basically wants to express everything he experiences universally through the whole human being.

And so, on the one hand, eurythmy can accompany the musical, the sounding, through a kind of visible singing, which must be distinguished from dancing, [and] it can accompany what occurs in the recitation and declamation of poetry through visible language. It is important, however, that on the one hand, in the movement of the whole human being, eurythmy will develop towards a pole of dance, and on the other hand, towards facial expressions, towards mere mimicry in general.

Only those who have once begun to understand eurythmy, which can be embodied primarily through the most expressive organs of the human being, the arms and hands, and who have once understood how eurythmy expresses what is to be revealed, will feel that when the eurythmic movement is forced into something dance-like, for example, it can then only express what is accompanied in poetry by a particular passion that is also revealed outwardly. Let us say, when there is ranting and raving, when something aggressive has happened, when the poetry turns, let us say, to something quite extreme, when the poetry turns to fighting and the like, then that which otherwise remains eurythmic will turn into dance-like movements. This is not to say anything against dance; it is only to say something about the relationship between eurythmy and dance-like movements. And if this becomes too strong, if dance-like elements are used too strongly, then those who understand eurythmy will perceive something brutal in it.

Similarly, if the eurythmic becomes too strongly transformed into mimicry or pantomime – especially pantomime – then those who have attained an understanding of the actual art of eurythmy must perceive this as if a person's laughter were turning into a kind of screech. Or when, in everyday life, one expresses in one's gestures that one is looking at someone mockingly, everything that is actually a mocking grin, unnatural laughter, an unnatural, critical disregard for other people, and the like: When this occurs in poetry, it can lead to the eurythmic actually turning into pantomime. Otherwise, however, when eurythmy, which is a truly visible, developed language, turns into pantomime, it always has to appear unchaste.

The transition from eurythmy to dance, where it is not appropriate, appears brutal. The transition to pantomime, where it is not appropriate, appears unchaste. These are the things that can lead in the right way to a true inner understanding of eurythmy, which is a developed visible language, not pantomime, not dance. Nor is there dancing to music, but rather singing in movement. Precisely when the immediate feeling emanates from what is actually being performed, one learns to distinguish between visible singing and mere dancing.

I have already stated that eurythmy is really not about constantly explaining while watching: this is this sound, that is the other. That is not what matters. What matters is that you feel directly with your eyes how the individual movements flow into one another, how the individual movements themselves work in their roundness, their angularity, and so on. Eurythmy is precisely not meant to be explained intellectually. Intellectually, however, those who practice eurythmy must learn many things as a basis — just as musicians must learn many things as a basis that are not in their heads. The point is that eurythmy should not be confused with something that does not come elementarily from the human being, that cannot in turn have an elemental effect on the viewer, but must have an immediate aesthetic effect on the viewer.

When, for example, recitation and declamation work together in eurythmy, interpreting the poet, this is a kind of orchestral collaboration. On the one hand, the poet is represented by what he has refrained from revealing in language; on the other hand, what he had to suppress is represented in eurythmy. In the visible image, in the imaginative image of eurythmy, the inner soul content of the most beautiful and significant poems comes to us in its fullness. More and more, it is precisely from this imagination, which stands before us on the stage, that we see the style, the humorous style, the serious and sublime style, the solemn style, and so on, in immediate perception.

And so declamation and recitation on the one hand, music on the other, and the stage design can really work together like an orchestra. We have made various efforts to incorporate more and more of this into eurythmy — what is still eurythmic stage design today remains somewhat imperfect compared to what it could become. After some time, we will certainly incorporate many other elements; completely different stage designs will emerge precisely through eurythmy. Recently, we have endeavored, for example, to consider lighting and incorporate it into the picture. So that what is effective in the sequence of lighting effects should not merely correspond to what a poem or a particular line expresses, but that lighting effects, earlier lighting effects, should really merge into the following ones, flowing into the whole. Efforts have been made to ensure that the accompaniment of the eurythmy and the lighting effects form a harmonious whole, just as the lighting effects themselves form a harmonious whole in terms of eurythmy. But there is still much that can be gradually incorporated into the eurythmic picture.

And declamation and recitation must in turn undergo a development through eurythmy. Today, in a somewhat unartistic age, a type of recitation and declamation has emerged that emphasizes the prosaic and no longer attaches great importance to poetic language, linguistic imagery, and the musicality of language. It is precisely in this area that Dr. Steiner has strived for years to return to the kind of recitation and declamation that was known in more artistic ages than ours, where what is to be achieved is achieved through the treatment of language itself. At first, only unartistic natures will come to the conclusion: Oh, the immediate sensation is not drawn out of the human organism in an elementary way, but everything is placed on the shaping of language. Yes, but that is precisely what is important for art, that what is will or passion and emotion is not expressed directly through the physical and prosaic, but through the way in which language is shaped.

At first, if one does not claim to move from the prosaic to the artistic, it may be satisfying when someone blurted out something from their organism in declamation that is supposed to be passionate. However, this makes an inartistic, albeit stronger impression. But what is passion, for example, must be expressed correctly through the use of language, especially when recitation and declamation really interact orchestrally with what is happening on stage in eurythmy.

Before such a performance, ladies and gentlemen, I must always ask the esteemed audience for their forgiveness and forbearance, because—as we are well aware—eurythmy is still in its infancy. But anyone who knows what immeasurable possibilities for development lie within it also knows that, however imperfect it may be today, eurythmy is capable of immeasurable perfection. It makes use of the most perfect instrument that an art can use: it makes more perfect use of this instrument than, for example, the art of mime or dance. Mimicry and dance use only parts of the human organism—namely, those parts that have an outward effect—for their representation, while eurythmy, with its visible language and visible singing, draws the whole human organism out of the soul and spirit, just as the soul and spirit themselves reveal themselves in this whole human organism. Because the human being is a small world, a microcosm, all the possibilities of movement and expression of the large world, the macrocosm, are revealed in him. So that eurythmy is on its way to becoming a revelation of the world through the most perfect instrument that an art can use: the human organism itself.

On the way to this perfection, eurythmy will already achieve what it must achieve, what it is predestined to achieve. And those who know its artistic means and sources know what it is predestined to achieve: it will become a fully valid, younger art alongside its fully valid, older sister arts.