Eurythmy Performance

A third element of our eurythmy is the pedagogical-didactic aspect. At the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, founded by Emil Molt and directed by me, we have a pedagogy based on spiritual science. At this Waldorf School, eurythmy has been introduced for all children from the lowest to the highest grades, in addition to physical education. And the years in which the Waldorf school has existed have already shown sufficiently how, just as the younger child finds its way into spoken language and singing out of an inner sense of well-being and the natural revelation of human nature, so the older child finds its way into this language of movement, this visible language. In language teaching, we even find that this visible language in turn has an effect on the handling and articulation of spoken language. But it is particularly important to note that we are not dealing here with one-sided gymnastics that only emphasises the physical, but with spiritual and mental gymnastics. The body is not neglected, but the whole person is educated—which is particularly important to us—to develop initiative of will. In educating initiative of will, it is certain that, if the pedagogical and didactic value of eurythmy is fully understood, eurythmy will be able to achieve something significant.