The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 23 December 1923, Dornach

Eurythmy Performance

Sarabande by J. S. Bach
“Treue leben ewig” (Faithfulness Lives Forever) by Albert Steffen
“Ich sah ein bleiches Licht” (I Saw a Pale Light) by Albert Steffen
Romance by Robert Schumann
“Wenn wir sagen ewiglich” by Albert Steffen
Sarabande in D minor from the 2nd Suite for Cello by J. S. Bach
“Ich und Du” by Albert Steffen
“Es saugt die leere Finsternis” (It sucks the empty darkness) by Albert Steffen
Andante teneramente in C minor from the Cello Sonata by Johann Ernst Galliard
Largo in B flat major, Op. 2,8 by G. F. Handel
“Das Heidenröslein” (The little heath rose) by J. W. v. Goethe Siciliana by J. S. Bach
“Adler und Taube” (Eagle and Dove) by J. W. v. Goethe Air in D major by J. S. Bach
“Abend” (Evening) by Albert Giraud, translated by O. E. Hartleben, with music by Leopold van der Pals
Scherzo by L. v. Beethoven

My dear friends!

Since most of our guests from out of town, insofar as they have already arrived, are present at this opening eurythmy performance, I do not need to speak in detail about the nature of eurythmy. Our friends are already familiar with it from the presentations that have already appeared in our Goetheanum. On the other hand, considering that we are once again gathered together for an anthroposophical undertaking, I would like to introduce this eurythmy performance with a few words.

In eurythmy, we have an art form that originated entirely from anthroposophical ground. It has always been the case in the world that every artistic activity that brought something new into civilization arose from supersensible human striving. One can look at architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, and everywhere one will find that the impulses that confront us in the external course of artistic human development can be traced back in some way to occult, supersensible foundations, foundations that we must seek in the mysteries. Art can only flow into human development if it contains forces and impulses of a supersensible nature. And the views that people have about art today are essentially connected with the whole materialistic way of thinking that has taken hold in Europe and America since the 15th century. But even if a certain kind of scientific knowledge can flourish in this materialism, artistry, true artistry, cannot flourish there: true artistry can only emerge from spiritual life. And that is why it should be seen as something, I would say, self-evident that a special art movement also emerged from the spiritual life of the anthroposophical movement.

One must be clear that art must be born from the supersensible through the mediation of the human being. If one goes down from the supersensible to the outer sensory appearance, one has, I would say, intuition at the top, where the human being converges with the supersensible. When human beings stand independently before the supersensible, perceive it, and allow it to reveal itself, then we are dealing with inspiration. And when human beings can connect the inspired so intensely with their own being that they are able to shape it, then imagination comes into play.

In language, we have something that appears in the outer image, but is extremely similar to this outer image of inspiration. We can already say that what we actually carry in our soul when we speak is similar to intuition. What we put on our tongue, on our palate, through our teeth and on our lips when we speak is the sensory image of inspiration.

But where does that which we express outwardly in language from our inner soul life come from? It comes from our mobile body structure, or I could also say, from our body structure in mobility. It is in the ability to move the legs, arms, hands, and fingers that the human being, as a very small child, first feels his or her relationship to the outside world. The first experience that can enter the consciousness of the soul is that which we have in the physical movement of the arms, hands, and legs. The other movements are more connected with the human being. But it is precisely those limbs that the human being stretches out, so to speak, from himself into the distance that give him a sense of the world. And just as humans stretch out their legs to walk or jump, just as they stretch out their arms to grasp and their fingers to feel, so too does what they experience flow back again. And as it flows back, it takes hold of the tongue, palate, larynx, and so on, and becomes speech. And so humans are the moving expression of the whole human being in their organism. And when one begins to understand this, one senses how that which in language is more like inspiration can descend into the imagination.

We can bring back what is a gift to our limbs, to our tongue, larynx, palate, and so on; we can bring it back, we can let it flow back, we can ask in the following way: What kind of feelings, what kind of sensations flow upward in the organism so that there is an a? We will always find that an a arises from something that expresses itself in this or that way in the air through a particular movement of our speech organs or in the axes of our eyes that cross, and so on. And then we will be able to send back what has flowed in this way, what has become a sound, a speech element, back into the whole human being, into the limb human being, and we will receive something that can be seen, that is formed, that is similar to the imagination, for what makes speech similar to inspiration.

And this is actually how eurythmy came about: so that what has been working unconsciously in the human being, so that its potential for movement becomes language, is in turn brought back from language into the potential for movement. And so an inspirational element is made into an imaginative element. That is why understanding eurythmy is linked to the realization of how intuition, inspiration, and imagination are connected.

Of course, one only has the images, but the images speak clearly. Take, my dear friends, the poem – the poem as it lives in the soul. When a person identifies completely with the poem, when they have absorbed it so deeply, so strongly, that they no longer need the words, but have the feelings and can experience these feelings in their soul: intuition.

Let us suppose that he now comes to recite or declaim the poem. He tries, in the vocal sound, in the harmony, in the rhythm, in the consonantal movements, in the tempo, beat, and so on, he tries, in other words, to express in recitation or declamation what lies in the feeling: inspiration. From the purely spiritual, as it is located in the nervous system, the matter is pushed down through the element of inspiration into the larynx, palate, and so on.

Now we let it sink down into the human limbs, so that the human being, in his own moving form, expresses what language is: Then we have the third element: eurythmized poetry – imagination.

You have, I would say, a picture of the descent of world development down to the human being – that scale which the human being must in turn climb back up from imagination through inspiration to intuition. But in the eurythmized poem you have imagination, in recitation and declamation you have inspiration in the image; and the poem experienced only inwardly, where you do not open your mouth but only experience it inwardly, identify yourself with it, become one with it: intuition.

And so, when you have a eurythmized poem in front of you that you experience inwardly, that is recited, you have the three stages in front of you, albeit in an external image. In eurythmy, we are dealing with an artistic element that had to emerge entirely from an inner necessity of the anthroposophical movement. It is a matter of bringing to consciousness what it means to gain insight into the ascent from imagination to inspiration, to intuition.