The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1923–1925

GA 277d — 22 March 1925, Mannheim

Eurythmy Performance

From a letter from Marie Steiner to Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart, March 23, 1925

Dear E., thank you so much for your lovely letter. We are all very much looking forward to this evening. Hopefully the noise of the children will not drown out the noise of the sunrise. The teaching staff has invited the eurythmy group to a get-together with tea afterwards. We have had a series of very successful evenings. - Heidenheim (full house), which earned us three hymns in the reviews, - Karlsruhe, where the atmosphere was very warm and enthusiastic (- reviews have not yet been sent to us -), except for a few empty seats in the last row of the expensive seats, it was packed (1200 people) - Mannheim also went very well; even though it was confirmation morning in the city, there were only a few empty rows at the very back of the long hall. [...] All the reports we have received about comments from outside audience members sound very enthusiastic; it is even claimed that there were tears during the Faust scene in Mannheim. It is almost a pity that there could not have been another performance between the educational conference and today: it was mainly the Schuurmans who had to go to Dornach because of their house. With them, I then dismissed Savitch and de Jaager, as they could be spared because of the local school performance. It is striking how well things are going in the end and how much everyone has learned through the repetitions. The original dreams that we are supposed to present at the educational conference have, of course, been somewhat forgotten. Mrs. Lewerenz, who had to leave us, is one of them; it must be done in Dornach on Saturday evening or Sunday, and then it's straight back to Stuttgart. Tomorrow I have to hold a lot of rehearsals; first with the Stuttgart group, who have to fill in the large group pieces in the second part of our program. Then the student performance – for which there is so much material that I'm sure I won't be able to get through it all. [...]

[Postscript:] The children at school were delighted, but thought the performance was too short.