8. Speech on Eurythmy
Allow me to say a few words before our eurythmy performance, not to explain the performance. Artistic things must not be preceded by an interpretation or an explanation; they must work through themselves, otherwise they would by no means belong to the field of art. But what we have conceived as eurythmy, especially in its further elaboration, does come from certain artistic sources that humanity has so far made very little use of, and it lies in an artistic formal language that has also hardly been used in the other arts and in artistic life in general. For our eurythmy must not really be compared with anything else that is similar, because the similarity could only be an external one with certain pantomime arts, dance arts and the like. Our eurythmy is not meant to be any of those things, because it makes use of a special means of expression, which consists of a kind of silent language that works through movements.
Cite:
GA 277c/1920-10-17/p004 · edition English