The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Marie Steiner wrote the following announcement for these performances: “Dear Friends! As a result of the interest shown by visitors to our eurhythmic performances in this new art form and the many requests to see them again, we have decided to give two further public performances on Sunday, March 23, at 5 p.m., and on Monday, March 24, at 8 p.m., in the carpentry workshop at the Goetheanum. We have decided to organize two evenings in order to give every member the opportunity to attend and to bring friends. The program includes a number of new performances, including a scene from “Faust”. Tickets at 3, 2, 1 francs are available at Hug & Co (Freiestrasse, Basel), at Fräulein Kessler (Reformgeschäft Arlesheim) and at the box office. We are grateful for any publicity for the event; for this purpose, programs are available at the Geering Bookstore (Bäumleingasse, Basel) and at the Dornach canteen.

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What is being attempted here can be compared with neighboring arts, with all kinds of dance-like arts and the like, and in relation to what has already been achieved, it will be found that ours is certainly the more imperfect of the two. But we would also be misunderstood if it were believed that we wanted to compete with any neighboring arts. We readily admit that in these neighboring arts, in terms of their nature, something much, much more perfect is already being achieved today than can be achieved in our country. But, as I said, it is not about such competition. The point is that something essentially new is to be inaugurated. And what we are seeking is based, just like everything else that is to develop in these rooms, on the Goethean world view developed for our present time, for our modern ideas and perceptions and feelings. That is why our building bears the name Goetheanum, and rightly so.

What we want to develop as the eurythmic art is, as far as we can see, truly derived from Goetheanism. However, if one wants to understand this Goethean basis of the eurythmic art, one must consider the whole great and powerful way in which Goethe's artistic sense, how Goethe's whole artistic direction is based on the grandiose of Goethe's world view, which is completely unlike today's sober direction, which is usually taken as the basis of world views. In order to characterize the basic impulse of our eurythmic art in a few words, I will have to point out what, I would like to say, I can show in a nutshell, which direction Goethe's ways of looking at things took when they wanted to penetrate into the essence of things, especially into the essence of living things. I will have to point out the very peculiarity of what is known as Goethe's theory of metamorphosis.

This doctrine of metamorphosis is based on the fact that living things are constantly transforming the individual elements they contain in their formation, so that all the individual elements of a living being are transformations of each other. And the whole, in turn, represents a single element only in a certain transformation. Goethe saw how the colored petals of a plant are only transformations, metamorphoses, of the green leaves, how even those organs that do not resemble leaves at all on the outside - such as the stamens or the pistil - are only transformed leaves, how the whole plant is basically a complicated leaf and how each individual leaf is a whole plant. For Goethe, the peculiar thing is that the parts of a living being are always a certain expression of the whole, and that the whole, in turn, is an expression of a single part.

Through such contemplation, one does indeed penetrate deeply into the essence of things. Thus Goethe not only contemplated the simple plant, he contemplated the animal creatures, and thus, at the summit of natural becoming and activity, he contemplated man himself.

Now, what Goethe has developed as a magnificent view of nature, as he has done in individual fields, can be transferred into artistic feeling. What I meant by the above is not a theoretical formulation of some thought, but the full realization of the feeling of metamorphosis in nature through the artistic sense. It is the full expression of what contemplation is through the power of artistic creation. Our eurythmic art is intended to bring Goethe's way of looking at things to artistic revelation in a special case, now transferred to another area. Only now we are not to go into the form, not to take something from the form, but from the activity.

And so, when we transfer Goethe's view to a certain higher area of human activity, the following emerges: When man unfolds, as he speaks, recites poetry, sings, in short, when he sets his larynx and neighboring organs in motion, that which man unfolds as the hidden activity that is only present in his larynx and neighboring organs, which he unfolds as such hidden activity, to which he does not turn his attention, man unfolds certain movements. He turns his attention to listening to what is spoken or sung. He does not turn his attention to these hidden movements. But he develops certain movements that, just as a single leaf is an entire plant, can express the activity of the whole human being. And the other way around: if you intuitively see what is mysteriously indicated in the movements of the larynx and its neighboring organs, through which human speech, human song comes about, you can translate what you can intuitively see into movements of the whole human being. In a certain way, one can bring the human being into such a movement and shaping of the movements that he becomes entirely larynx.

That is what our eurythmic art is striving for. Please do not misunderstand me. It is not meant that it should be shown in a crazy way how one thing or another can be expressed through movements of the human body, but rather that just as mysteriously as that which emerges from the depths of the human larynx can reveal itself artistically, so, if one makes the whole human being the expression of that which otherwise only the larynx and its neighboring organs express, that which comes to light in the shaping of the whole human being can be artistic.

That is our eurythmy, what the human being brings to contemplation when he represents through his entire body those movements that are otherwise only present in the larynx and that would be expressed, for example, when one would , the air movements that arise when a person artistically shapes sound in speech or song in the voice, in the tone, a source of a new artistic element is thereby obtained from the ground, because all that is truly artistic is based on the discovery of such a natural foundation.

Goethe must have felt this when he made the following statement, which is very meaningful for his view and perception: “To whom nature reveals its manifest secret, he feels a certain longing for its most worthy interpreter, art.” The secret that is hidden in human speech and singing can actually be transformed into movements of the whole human being. In this way, the eurythmic art fulfills what Goethe wanted again when he said: “Art is based on a certain recognition, on the essence of things, when it allows us to reveal their inner laws in visible and tangible forms.

That which lives in the human soul should be revealed in visible forms through the art of eurythmy. But our eurythmic art is also an art of movement in which everything arbitrary is excluded. Other similar art forms, which, as I said, achieve more perfection in their own way than we can achieve today in our field, express in their gestures, in some mimic movement, that which is momentarily added to an inner soul emotion or the like, to a feeling, to a sensation. All this is not the case with us. We do not seek to depict any of the connections that arise between a gesture, a movement and an inner soul process. Just as music itself is based on an inner lawfulness, so the movement of our eurythmy is based on an inner lawfulness, and what is continuous in a presentation is as lawfully inner — not arbitrary - as melody or harmony in music itself is subject to inner laws.

Thus, when two individuals with different personalities perform the same thing in eurythmy, they will always perform it in the same way. The only subjective difference is that it is different from the way a Beethoven sonata is performed by two pianists. Of course, each individual brings their own subjectivity to what they perform. But the art of eurythmy is completely objective, based on its own laws. And if you find something represented by one artist, another artist would represent the same thing in exactly the same way, only varied according to subjectivity in the way suggested to you. This art of movement can therefore depict everything that is initially revealed through sound, sound sequences, modulation of sound, etc., through the movement of the individual human being. What accompanies our speech, especially when it is artistically formed, what warms this speech, as feeling is warmed by soul content, what this speech brings in rhymes, in rhythms - that, in turn, is expressed in our group movements. Groups always represent that which plays into the larynx from the rest of the human being, so that speech can be warmed, illuminated, and soul-filled, or also given rhythm or rhyming alliteration. Anything is possible in this way of expressing it through the art of eurythmy.

In this way, an art of movement that has been brought forth by human beings themselves is presented to our contemporaries. A work of art is created in the human being. The movements that we want to bring to light rest in the human being itself. Of course, all that is fundamental is only necessary for such an art to arise. But just as the larynx is necessary for the presentation of song and speech, and just as, in this presentation of song and speech, the artistic element comes to life in direct contemplation, so too can life come to life in that which arises from the inner, essential law of things, here of the human being itself, can only live in what emerges from the inner essential

Goethe says so beautifully: when man is placed at the summit of nature, he feels himself to be a complete nature, in order to bring forth a summit in turn. He absorbs symmetry, order and harmony in order to finally rise to the production of the work of art. In this way, the human being should not rise to the summit of the work of art, but create a work of art from his own inner possibilities of movement in this eurythmic performance. The important thing, dear audience, is that what is otherwise heard can be seen. Today we still present it in such a way that poems are recited or music is played on one side, so that one can hear and see at the same time on the stage the movements of the human being, which are carried out, so to speak, by the larynx that has become visible in the whole human being. That is the peculiar thing, that is also the more Goethean aspect of our eurythmic art.

As I said, everything we are able to present today is only the beginning. Pantomime and mime are completely excluded. Everything is based on an inner lawfulness. And if you do notice pantomime and mime, it is only because of an imperfection that must be eradicated later. Therefore, I ask you to also in this sense, what we can offer you today, to take. We are aware that everything is just a beginning, that everything is still quite imperfect. But we are convinced that, despite all the imperfections, the beginning of a new art movement, a new art activity has been created. Perhaps the principle still needs to be changed a lot. But we are convinced that something has been created that can become the seed of a future art. And we believe that what we can offer today as a beginning can, if fate permits, either be brought to an ever greater perfection by ourselves or by others, as with other arts. That is what I took the liberty of saying about today's performance. I would also like to add that we are very pleased that so many members of the audience have come today. In fact, so many people wanted to come that we had to turn some away. As a result, we will repeat today's performance next Sunday so that those who were unable to attend today can also get what is rightfully theirs. But that doesn't mean that there won't be another performance tomorrow at 8 a.m.

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Dear attendees!

Please allow me to say a few words by way of introduction to our eurythmy performance. This will seem all the more justified given that what is presented will not be something that is complete in itself, but rather an attempt, or perhaps I could say the mere intention of an attempt. For it is obvious that this particular form of movement art, which is to be presented in eurythmy, is confused with all kinds of neighboring arts, dance-like and similar arts. These neighboring arts have, as we well know, achieved great perfection in the present day. And if there were any belief that we wanted to compete with these neighboring arts, then this would be a false belief. It is not about something that is to compete in this way, but about a special form of movement art that is based on its own laws and that is intended to be a beginning, initially just a beginning of something that can perhaps be achieved in its direction.

It is based, like everything that is to be presented here at the Goetheanum, on the foundations of Goethe's world view. However, it is not the case that we only want to reproduce what is in the finished form of Goethe's world view, but rather that we want to keep alive, almost a century after Goethe's death, that has been given to the world through Goethe's world and art view, that we would like to develop that which has been initiated through Goethe for the development of humanity, in the sense of modern human conceptions.

Goethe's unique quality is that everything that has been incorporated into his art, his conception of art, is based on his comprehensive world view, which had nothing merely soberly theoretical about it – and therefore does not have the same sobering effect on artistic creation and perception as dry, sober rationalistic world views. It is from Goethe's great and powerful view of nature that his whole conception of art emerged. And you will allow me to try to hint at something that is particularly important to us in the development of the eurythmic arts, starting with a single detail.

I must refer to what is known as Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. This is a magnificent conception of the nature of all living things. More than one might think lies in Goethe's view that the colored petal of a flower is only a transformation of the green leaf of the plant, that even the stamens, the pistil of the plant, which are not at all similar in appearance to the leaves, are transformed petals. For Goethe, everything about a plant is a leaf, a transformed leaf.

And so, in turn, the whole plant is only a correspondingly differentiated, developed leaf for him. And each individual leaf is a whole plant for him, only more simply formed. This is Goethe's basic view of all living things. Every single part of a living being is, in a sense, a repetition of the whole living thing. And in turn, the whole living thing is only a more complicatedly developed organism of precisely that which is present in the individual main parts. And this is especially the case with humans. That which a person is as a whole is present in his individual, essential parts.

What Goethe had incorporated into his way of thinking for the design of living beings up to and including humans can now be applied not only to the design of the individual parts of a living being and of the whole living being, but also to activity. For example, it can be said that the activity performed by the human larynx and its neighboring organs is a microcosmic repetition of the potential movements that are inherent in the human being as a whole. In turn, everything that can be brought out of the whole human being in the way of movement and creative possibilities can be a reflection of what is revealed in the larynx when speaking or singing in the sequence of sounds, the sequence of tones, in the lawful connection of the tones and so on. We turn, by listening to singing, to speaking, to artfully shaped speech, our attention first to the sound and the sequence of sounds; but the intuitive recognition, that which looks at what is merely is predisposed to as possibilities of movement in the larynx, or that intuitive imagination can gain an insight into what passes over into the air vibrations, into the air rhythm, when a person sings or speaks artfully, can be expressed by the whole human being.

This is the basis of our art of movement, our eurythmy. To a certain extent, one can say that in eurythmy, as we understand it, the whole human being should act as a visible larynx, as if one were suddenly able to see what the air accomplishes in terms of inner mobility and movement when we hear a sound or a sequence of sounds.

In expressing his view of art with the beautiful words: “He to whom nature reveals her manifest secret feels the longing for her best interpreter, art,” Goethe pointed to a secret of artistic feeling in general. And with regard to the human being itself, our eurythmy seeks to transform what is naturally present in the human being into art. I am only describing the elementary foundations of our eurythmy to you, dear audience. What is brought out of the natural essence of man is not transformed into artistic creation according to abstract knowledge, but according to artistic feelings. It must, however, be judged directly in contemplation. All artistic feeling is based on this alone, that something deeper in the essence of things is taken in by the human being in direct contemplation and is pleasing. Recognizing this, Goethe once said, “Style, artistic style, is based on the foundations of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as it is allowed to us to present it in visible and tangible forms.

The style of our eurythmy is based on the essence of the human being, insofar as it is permitted to depict this essence in movement as visibly as the sounds audibly represent what lives in the human soul.

This is how our art of movement came about. However, since not only that which is inherent in the movements of the larynx lives in the sound, but since the sound and the sequence of sounds in singing and artistic speech is illuminated by soul feelings, warmed through by soul moods , and in the artistic shaping of speech in rhythms, rhymes, alliterations, assonance and so on, then this must also be expressed when creating a kind of visible speech. In this sense, the individual person who performs eurythmy presents, in front of the larynx as such, what the neighboring organs of the larynx are; what pervades the spoken or sung word in the soul will be presented through groups and group movements, the mutual relationship of the persons in groups, and so on.

The essential thing here is that everything that is expressed through eurythmy never expresses — as is the case with neighboring arts — a mere momentary alignment of the gesture, of the facial expression, with that which lives in the soul. Rather, our eurythmy is an inwardly lawful art, like the musical art itself, which lives in melody and harmony. Nothing in any gesture is arbitrary. Much more important than the individual gesture is the succession of gestures. It is truly a musical art that is visibly expressed in our eurythmy.

And one can also say: when two eurythmists present one and the same thing, it is to be presented in the same way. Subjective differences can only arise because the perceptions are so different, as, for example, two pianists present a Beethoven sonata differently according to their different perceptions. But the subjective differences and arbitrariness in the field of eurythmy cannot be greater than in this field.

Anything that is merely pantomime or mimic is strictly excluded, and if you see any of this in our performance, it is because we have not yet achieved the perfection we are striving for. But such perfection must unfold over time from this eurythmic art.

What I have just presented to you has been done by me in order to show how this eurythmic art has been derived from the nature of the human being itself, how the human being, in accordance with the potentialities of movement that are present in him, becomes a work of art in eurythmy. This, too, is in the spirit of Goethe, as he so beautifully expresses it in his book on Winckelmann: “Man, placed at the summit of nature, beholds nature as a whole and brings forth a summit, taking order, harmony and measure together, in order to finally rise to the production of the work of art.

In this way, we try on the one hand to bring the artistic aspect of language to the ear through the musically designed, and at the same time, to a certain extent, to allow the whole person as a larynx to express what can be revealed in the sound and the sequence of sounds, in the tone and the sequence of tones.

In this sense, I ask you to take our still weak attempt. We are not at all presumptuous to think that what we can offer is more than a beginning in the indicated direction. But we are also convinced that it is a beginning of a truly new art form, which, however, may only be able to be developed over a long period of time. We believe that it will be possible – either through ourselves or, if we are unable to do so, through others – to develop this art form into something that can stand alongside the other arts that humankind has produced. With this in mind, I ask you once again to take note of our modest attempt.

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Dear attendees! Please allow me to say a few words before our eurythmy performance. I feel this is all the more justified as this performance will be about an experiment, or perhaps I could say: the intention of an experiment. For it is tempting to compare what we will be offering as a movement art with all kinds of neighboring arts, dance arts and the like, and [it is tempting] to think that we want to compete with such neighboring arts. Now we know very well that what is being achieved today in the various neighboring arts is something extraordinarily perfect in its own right. And we would be completely misunderstood if it were thought that we want to compete with it in any way. What we want is something quite different: to create an art of movement in its own right, which is admittedly only at the beginning. And that is what I would particularly like to emphasize: that we think very modestly about this particular stage at which we still stand today with regard to this our special, unique art form, and in this sense I also ask you to accept our presentation today.

What we are attempting has a completely different source from neighboring arts. It comes from the same source from which everything that is done here in this Goetheanum should flow: It comes from Goethe's world view and view of art. Even if we are striving to carry out a 20th-century Goetheanism, that is, one that has been further developed in line with the views of modern times, it is still from the source of Goethe's world and art view that we draw.

Perhaps I can best suggest what needs to be said about our art of movement by pointing to a certain branch of Goethe's vast and comprehensive world view, to his view of nature. Goethe himself sought the sources of his artistic vision in his intense, intuitive view of nature. He coined the beautiful phrase: When nature begins to reveal its secrets to someone, that person feels the most ardent longing for its most worthy interpreter, art. It may seem as though I am taking you on a brief journey to a remote theoretical area of Goethe's work, to the area of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. For that which was expressed in the comprehensive view of the metamorphosis of living beings can be completely translated into artistic form. Goethe saw in every single plant leaf a whole plant, only in a simple form, developed in the leaf, and he saw in turn in every single part of the plant a transformed leaf. In the colorful blossom, he saw transformed leaves; yes, even in the stamens and pistils, which in their external form look so little like leaves, Goethe saw transformed, metamorphosed plant leaves. And the whole plant was in turn an intricately designed leaf for him. Goethe applied this view to all of nature. And we can only come to terms with living nature if we base our understanding of it on this kind of view, right up to the human being, if we follow how everything consists of living members that are actually only repetitions of the whole, of the whole organism, how the whole organism is only a complicated elaboration, transformation of the individual member. This can also be applied by progressing to the most complicated natural phenomenon, to man, and not only to the forms of his individual limbs, but it can also be applied to the activity of the human organism.

In so far as we have the natural human organization, we carry the larynx and its neighboring organs within us. Through this larynx and its neighboring organs, we produce that which not only functions as speech from person to person, but which can be artistically developed in poetic and artistic language, in song, and in the element of music. If we are able to follow, through intuitive observation, through spiritual observation, the movement patterns that are present in the larynx itself, we can say that what goes on in the movements of this single human limb, in the larynx, when we speak or sing artistically, can be transformed into activity, into movement of the whole human being. The whole human being can become like a visible larynx. We could also say that when we speak, that is, when we add sound to sound or tone to tone in a logical way, the air moves in certain rhythmic movements. These rhythmic movements are not what we can turn our attention to when we listen while speaking. But intuitive insight can form a picture of what is actually going on invisibly in the air movement. And all of this can be transferred to movements of the whole human being.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, our eurythmic art is based on this, which, as I said, is only an experiment today. The whole human being, as he presents himself to you here on the stage, should act like a living larynx. Of course, this must be further expanded. When we speak artistically, when we make language the organ of poetry, when we make it the organ of music, the warmth of inner feeling resonates through the sound, and the lawful sequence of sounds, tones, moods, resonates within. That which resonates in human speech and in poetry in terms of feeling, mood, emotional content, and inner soul movement, in terms of rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and assonance, should in turn be expressed in the positions and movements of groups of people performing eurythmy.

Thus everything that is otherwise revealed to the human ear in sound is to be expressed through such an art of movement. I am not saying that one must always recognize how something inward is expressed through one or other movement of the person or the group. Of course, once such an artistic source, to which I have just referred, has been found, what can then be represented through it must have an immediate artistic effect on intuitive perception. It will do so if it is developed to a certain degree of artistic perfection. For art – as Goethe says so beautifully – is based on a manifestation, on a revelation of certain natural laws that would never be revealed without it. So the person who discovers secret natural laws through intuitive contemplation and transforms them into something visible is walking the path of how art can truly be brought about. For in the truly artistic, in that which is not merely artistic in a naturalistic or external sense, in the truly artistic one must always have the sensation of looking intensely into an infinite and ever more infinite, into an abyssal depth. This is only possible if what is presented artistically is taken from the inner laws of nature itself. This is what has been attempted here. Therefore, what is presented visually for direct contemplation must also appear artistic. Goethe says so beautifully that art is based on the depths of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as we are allowed to express this essence of things in visible or tangible forms.

In this sense, the eurythmy art aspires to achieve something Goethean.

Thus, if one enters into what this art is about – as we have once set it up – on the one hand one can see the human larynx embodied in the movements and forms of the whole person and groups of people, and on the other hand one can hear the poetry and the music, so that the two complement each other and unite to form a total work of art. And it should be understood, esteemed attendees, that the recitation that accompanies the eurythmic art must be held differently than what is usually understood by recitation today, precisely because it appears as a special artistic supplement to eurythmy.

Recitation today has actually stepped out of the realm of the truly artistic. Recitation today is actually limited to the presentation of the poetic content. The discovery of an art form such as that on which eurythmy is based will in turn lead to recitation itself being restored to what it once was, something that those who are younger today no longer know. Those who are older today can still remember the reciters of the 70s and 80s, who perhaps already belonged to the decadent, but still offered an echo of what the art of recitation used to be. Few people today know that Goethe rehearsed “Iphigenia” for the stage in Weimar, conducting with a baton like a musical work of art. The aim was to make the rhythmical and the artistic audible. This art of recitation has been lost. Through eurythmy, it will in a sense become necessary again. Today, people no longer want to hear what is actually poetic and artistic: it is the poetic form, not what can be expressed by summarizing the content. Basically, the art of recitation today is nothing more than a particularly sophisticated form of reading prose. And only by taking a detour through eurythmy will we be able to rediscover the art of recitation and declamation. This is not understood today.

So I would like to ask you, dear attendees, to take on board our presentation in the sense in which it has been presented, and above all to bear in mind that we ourselves – as I said at the beginning – think very modestly about what we are already able to achieve. If it is met with understanding, it will be able to develop further. And we are convinced that today we are still at the beginning of its development with this eurythmy. But we ourselves - or perhaps not we ourselves, but others - will be able to bring out of it something that can be placed alongside other art forms as a special new art form.

What will appear particularly important – because artistic creation has been elevated to the level of the human being – is what Goethe directly points out in his beautiful book about Winckelmann, in which he says: When the human being is placed at the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature and brings forth, takes harmony, proportion, meaning, significance and content together, in order to finally rise to the production of the work of art.

In eurythmy, something should be presented like a work of art that comes directly from what is possible in the human being in terms of movement and inner strength, to external revelation. I ask you to consider that a start has been made on this in our eurythmy. And in this sense, I ask you to take up our presentation and give it your indulgence and attention.

[After the break:]

In the second part, we will present the scene at midnight from Goethe's “Faust II”, the so-called “four gray women”: worry, guilt, lack, need.

It is the case that this scene in particular can be seen as a kind of rehearsal for our eurythmic art. It will be seen that from “Faust”, in which Goethe, as he himself said, so much has been secretly hidden, through eurythmy, something will be able to be brought out that has not yet been brought out by ordinary stage performance, - If one has often seen the representations of the first part of “Faust” - I will say: the representation for example, on the one hand, the [Devrient-Lassen] performance, then one has the feeling that it stylizes what Goethe not only in terms of content but also in terms of style, according to the higher art form, also incorporated into “Faust”, that it comes out in this way [mysteries]; [but] then the thing very easily becomes operatic. On the other hand, if you stick to acting – I remember Wilbrandt's performance, or others – it can easily happen that scenes that shine so deeply into the human soul as this scene of sorrow can remain empty and poor.

The way in which eurythmy expresses what Goethe so stylishly attempted to express in the second part of “Faust”, in this most mature of poems – this kind of eurythmic performance will be best suited to bringing out, perhaps through eurythmy, what Goethe meant. And that is why it will be possible to make just such an attempt at presenting this scene, to show how, with the help of eurythmy, a coherent whole can arise from these arts in addition to the acting.

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Dear attendees!

Allow me to say just a few words in advance of our eurythmy presentation. It seems necessary to me, because our presentation cannot yet claim a certain perfection. It is an experiment, yes, I might even say it is the very first germ of an experiment. If I did not say that, it would be easy to believe that we wanted our eurythmy to compete with neighboring arts, all kinds of pantomime or dance arts, which today are highly developed to a high degree of perfection. We are fully aware that we cannot offer anything as perfect as these neighboring arts on the basis of the particular art form that is to be presented here, and we do not for a moment imagine that we are competing with these neighboring arts in any way. But it is not at all a matter of offering something the same or similar to these arts, but rather of setting something of our own, something special, that, like basically everything that is cultivated here in this Goetheanum, stands on the ground of Goethe's world view, in this case on the ground of Goethe's view of art. Not as if we wanted to take what Goethe did and simply apply it to our time, but rather as we feel that Goetheanism must be transformed according to the feelings, according to the artistic and spiritual views of the present, of the modern age.

If I am to begin by pointing out how this art form, which we call eurythmy, actually came about, I do not want to say anything about the aesthetic moment at first; that must arise from direct observation. However, it may perhaps be important to point out how this particular art form was found. And here I may point out something that at first seems theoretical but is deeply rooted in Goethe's magnificent view of nature, which then metamorphosed into his comprehensive view of art. I would like to point out what is called the Goethean theory of metamorphosis, which - translated into artistic perception - can be perceived throughout our entire structure.

To put it briefly, Goethe saw every single plant leaf as a whole plant, and also saw the individual colored petal as a whole plant. He imagined the metamorphic development of every single leaf as a whole plant, but also the whole plant as nothing more than a complex leaf.

This Goethean view can be applied to all living things, especially to the most comprehensive living thing, to the human being itself. Here in eurythmy, this view of nature, translated into art, is applied not only to the shaping of form but also to movement. The aim was to intuitively seek out the special intentions, the special predispositions, the movement seeds in the human larynx and its neighboring organs when the human being moves into artistic, poetic or musical, song-like production of the sound. In doing so, the human being's attention turns primarily to the audible. And only someone who would see, perhaps through artificial means, how the air mass, stimulated by the movement of the larynx and its neighboring organs, is set into rhythmic vibrations when a person speaks artistically or makes himself heard in song, only someone who would see this would see how a whole world arises out of the individual organ complex of the human being, how the whole human being reveals himself. Just as the individual leaf of a plant is reflected in the whole plant in a more complicated way, so can one reshape what one perceives intuitively, supersensibly, while forming artistic sounds. This can be transformed into movement and shaped by the whole person. The whole person can become a larynx. Then, in the whole person, what is expressed in the individual larynx is in turn effective as inner, significant, living tendencies. Goethe once said so beautifully: Art is based on a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which would never be perceived without it. And in yet another of his words, he describes this subjectively as the same, when he says: He to whom nature reveals her secret feels a certain longing for her best interpreter, art.

The truth of these words can be felt when one implements what is otherwise supersensible and invisible in human speech and singing when it is expressed in the movement of the human organism as a whole. What you see here on the stage is partly carried out in the transformation of the movement of the individual human being, but also of groups of people, in such a way that the visible expression of the human larynx is presented through the whole human being. Eurythmy should be a visible speech. Indeed, art and artistic feeling must underlie the whole development of eurythmy. What you will see here has not been derived from dry theory or science, but from Goethe's concept of nature and art, directly translated into feeling. What the individual person presents, in his or her postures and movements, is what is otherwise revealed in the larynx as a predisposition for movement in artistic speech and song. What we present in groups, in the mutual relationship of one person to another in the groups, in the movements of the groups, that is more what then glows through the language as feeling, as inner soul mood, as soul warmth. This is what is present in artistic speech formation as rhyme, as rhythm, as various assonance and so on. Everything that otherwise only passes into the tonal element, into the audible, can be expressively expressed in style through a development and revelation of the whole human being and of groups of people. Stylistically, based on Goethe's words, on the deepest foundations of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as it is permitted to us to present it in tangible and visible forms - that is what is attempted here, to feel this highest revelation of the world, this microcosm, the human being, in what lies within him, to present it visibly, like a large larynx.

Of course, in saying this, I am saying nothing other than how this art form came about: just as nature creates within the human being that which can become art – in poetry, in musical song – so that which lies within the whole human being can become art. But all that I have said is only intended to express the origin. The artistic must be felt in direct perception. And we are convinced that it can be felt.

So we will endeavor, on the one hand, to bring the sound to hearing through recitation or declamation or through music, and on the other hand, to bring the same thing that can be heard to vision through eurythmy.

Dear attendees, even with regard to our eurythmic art form, recitation brings us into conflict with today's views. The younger people of today have no longer experienced the old art of recitation, even in its decadent form, which was still present in the 1970s and 1980s. One need only think of how Goethe rehearsed his Iphigenia in Weimar with the baton. Today, for the most part, people are much more interested in the recitation itself, which takes into account the formal, the actual artistic, that has nothing to do with the content of the words, and not so much in the prose that is recited, from which the content, nuances and the like emerge. We must look to shape the recitation here, which is to come together with eurythmy to form a Gesamtkunstwerk, by going back – just as our art of dance must also go back to the sacramental dance of antiquity in many ways – we must go back go back to older forms of recitation that are less understood today, but which can be understood again if something develops from the declining art culture of the 19th century that in turn contains elementary spiritual, super-sensible elements. To conclude this brief introduction with a quotation from Goethe, let me express something that Goethe says, so to speak, about his view of nature and his view of art in the beautiful book about Winckelmann: When man is placed at the summit of nature, he in turn feels like a summit, in that he summarizes the whole of nature; he seeks out symmetry, harmony, order and finally rises to the production of a work of art in which the spirit of the world becomes aware of itself. - One feels this in particular when one would like to transform the whole human being into a work of art, as it is to be done here through eurythmy.

But with all this, I ask you, dear attendees, to consider what we have undertaken here as an attempt to arrive at some new art form, as a beginning. We ourselves think very modestly about what eurythmy is here for the time being; but we believe, on the other hand, that something perfect can really come out of this weak beginning. Please take what is presented here in this spirit. We are convinced that eurythmy, either through us or, if we are prevented from doing so, through others, can develop from this modest beginning, which we are only able to present today, into an independent art form that can stand fully equal with the other arts.

Holiday children from Munich spent a few weeks in Dornach, receiving eurythmy lessons from Tatiana Kisseleff and performing some staff exercises.

A group of German children on holiday:

Balen and Spreiden with musical accompaniment by Max Schuurman
Stabübungen: up-down-right-left and spiral with musical accompaniment by L.eopold van der Pals and Qui-Qui with musical accompaniment by Max Schuurman
Alliterations and vowels
We, we...
The Cloud Illuminator
“The Herdsman” by Fercher von Steinwand

Eurythmy group:

TIAOAIT with a musical prelude by Max Schuurman “Hope” by Friedrich Schiller
Saying from the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner “Calm Sea” and “Happy Voyage” by J. W. v. Goethe
Opening “Look around you, look within” with music by Leopold van der Pals
“In the tree, you dear little bird there“ by Christian Morgenstern
“The walk” by Martin Opitz with music by Max Schuurman, with singing
“Selige Leichtigkeit“ by Christian Morgenstern
“The birth of the pearl” by Fercher von Steinwand with the start of the waves with music by Leopold van der Pals
EVOE (eurythmy without words) with music by Max Schuurman
“A dream experience“ with music by Louise van Blommestein (with vocals and two violins)
“The Worm's Confession” by Christian Morgenstern with music by Max Schuurman for vocals, sound and lute eurythmy
Opening with music by Jan Stuten Satirical opening with music by L.eopold van der Pals
Humoresques by Christian Morgenstern: “The picket fence”; “The walking man”; “Moon things”; “The aesthetic weasel”

Of the following

First version of the address

So, dear children, you have been allowed to come here from your homeland, you have been allowed to see the beautiful mountains, the beautiful fields, the meadows, and you have been allowed to get to know the friendly people who have taken you in, you have been able to enjoy this friendly welcome that you have received here in beautiful, dear Switzerland. And now, yesterday and today, we also wanted to show you what we have to show here. You have seen many things up here. When you reflect later and remember what you have seen, and when you understand the word eurythmy, then hopefully this will be a beautiful memory, a beautiful thought.

You know that man has the beautiful gift, the beautiful gift of God, of language. But one usually speaks with the mouth. What you have seen here in eurythmy is also a language, a speaking, only the whole person speaks. And one day you will all know what it is in the human being that you call the soul. You do not yet know, you cannot yet know what is in the human being, what is in you and what you will one day call the soul. But what you have seen here, the movements made with the arms, the movements made in the circle and elsewhere, all that is spoken, spoken not to be heard but to be seen. And it is not the mouth that speaks, but the whole person, it is the soul in the person. And if you should ask later: What dwells in my breast? – the soul lives there – then remember that yesterday and today you learned how the soul speaks through the human being, through his limbs.

And now I would like to say a few words to the adults above your heads about what you see and what you will understand better later.

How what we call a eurythmic experiment, how this our eurythmy is an embodiment, one might say, of Goethe's world view and Goethe's view of art, how we have to think of it in the first third of the 20th century, not in Goethe's time itself. Goethe, as a human being, looked more deeply into the living essence of nature than any of his contemporaries and especially than any of the generations that followed him. The depth of Goethe's world view has still not been fully appreciated today.

What can be gained from Goethe's world view in a narrowly defined area is to be presented through our eurythmy. Goethe sees the whole plant only as a more complicated leaf. For Goethe, every leaf is a window through which he can see the whole plant with his supersensible eye. And this view, which is far from being fully developed, can be artistically perfected further and further in accordance with this world view. Here it is applied in a specific, concrete area.

Those who can intuitively see what is actually going on in the whole person when speaking, especially when speaking artistically and poetically, know that these movements and activities carried out by the larynx and neighboring organs are related to the whole person in the same way that Goethe believed that the leaf is related to the whole plant. The leaf is a metamorphosis of the whole plant. For us here, what is expressed in human speech by the larynx and its neighboring organs is a metamorphosis of what the whole human being holds back, what he actually wants to express by listening. And those who can see supersensibly know that it is not just a theory to imagine that we set the air in motion through our speech organs; so that speech carries within it an invisible movement.

That is what we attempt in eurythmy: to make the whole human being an extended larynx in movement, to visualize everything that otherwise remains invisible in speech because we otherwise take it for granted that our attention is directed towards hearing. To make visible the visualization of speech through the whole human being, that is what we strive for in eurythmy. There is nothing arbitrary about it. Not everything has been achieved yet. The art of eurythmy is only just beginning, it is only the attempt at a beginning. All pantomime and all arbitrariness are excluded. Just as music itself is structured in accordance with the laws of harmony, with each note following naturally from the one that precedes it, so too is the structure of major and minor keys in music. When two people or two groups of people perform the same thing in eurythmy at two different places, there must not be more individual differences in the performance than there are when two different pianists play the same Beethoven sonata with their own personal interpretation. It is always structured according to the law.

That is what we are striving for and by which we want to try to achieve something artistic on the one hand, but on the other hand also to achieve something pedagogically hygienic. Artistically, I would like to say, this great Goethean principle of art should be expressed, which he expresses, for example, when he says: Man is placed at the summit of nature and feels again as a whole nature. He takes order, measure, harmony and meaning together and finally rises to the production of the work of art. Here the whole human being becomes a work of art through those possibilities of movement that lie in the whole human being as they do in the larynx, where they remain invisible. These should come to light. The inner soul-feeling that glows in speech, the inner warmth of soul that comes from the enthusiasm of our personality, and what the poet brings forth in rhyme and rhythm, all this comes to the fore in the group movements and movements of people in outer space. There is nothing more arbitrary about the inner lawfulness than is necessary to present it artistically when two different performers present one and the same thing.

Of course, the fact that I am saying these few introductory words does not prejudice the artistic aspect. After all, art is based on the fact that it can be enjoyed directly. But the supersensible sources of all artistic creation in Goethe's sense should be pointed out. It seems necessary to me to create a new art form in this area, which we want to create in addition to everything else that we would like to create for our building.

Eurythmy will be accompanied on the one hand by recitation and on the other by music. The same thing that is heard in recitation, the same thing that is heard in music, the same thing should be represented in eurythmy through the forms of eurythmy. I would just like to mention that the art of recitation must return to the old, good forms. Those people who are here today have actually, at heart, [kcome to know a true art of recitation; this basically ended in the 1870s.

I recall that Goethe was so imbued with this art of recitation that he rehearsed his “Iphigenia” with his actors, baton in hand like a conductor. This is entirely justified, because what matters is not that the prosaic recitation – as is the case today, out of a certain materialistic tendency – particularly emphasizes the literal content, but rather that the artistic, the rhythmic, that which is not the prose content but the artistic form is expressed in the recitation. Then, in the parallel recitation and eurythmy, one sees how the whole human being is actually structured, to move inwardly in this way when the poet creates something artistic, when anything artistic is created at all.

I would just like to remind you that before Schiller visualized the content of a poem in his mind, he did not have the literal concept in his imagination, but rather an indeterminate melodiousness, a musicality in his soul. Schiller created entirely from the musically moved soul. The rhythmic impulse, the inward movement, which is then transferred to the prose content, was present in the most important of Schiller's poems. In turn, we want to let the emphasis of the prose content of a poem recede to a certain extent and express the actual poetry in the recitation, which should go hand in hand with the eurythmy.

You will, of course, have to be lenient: we are only just beginning with our eurythmy. Above all, it should be noted that the pantomime, the mimicry, the momentary gesture, that all will come later when the eurythmy is more perfected. We are our own harshest critics and we know that we are still at an imperfect stage with the art of eurythmy today. But we believe that when the whole human being is called upon in the sense of Goethe, so that one feels that higher natural laws shine through what is presented externally to the senses, then, on the basis of this Goethean world view, a new, genuine art, which is something nobler than the art of dance that one otherwise has, will also be able to emerge.

And what is basically only physiological in gymnastics, what only trains the body, the outer body, should be imbued with soul in eurythmy, so that it becomes apparent that the soul vibrates and speaks everywhere, so that we also want to incorporate an element of pedagogy into our eurythmic art. I believe I may commend to your forbearance, above all, what we are now able to present in a still imperfect way. But we hope that if our contemporaries show some interest in this attempt, then we will be able to bring this eurythmic art in particular to such perfection – perhaps no longer through us, but through others who will follow – that it will be able to establish itself as a new art, fully entitled to stand alongside the other older arts.

I wanted to say these few words, dear attendees, to introduce our eurythmy performance.

Second version of the address:

It's great that you dear children have come up to visit us again before you have to leave dear Switzerland, where you have received so much love. Haven't you? You've had a good time? And then you were also able to learn a lot, and those who took part in the eurythmy will probably also have fond memories of it in later life. Something should be expressed through eurythmy, as if you want to say something. When we speak, this only happens with the larynx and its neighboring organs; the layers of air are set in motion and waves form in the air. We usually do not see this because we do not focus on it, but listen to what is being spoken. In the same way, eurythmy, like the larynx, seeks to express something through the whole body. Eurythmy is a word that one sees, not hears. What the soul bears within it is made manifest through the eurythmic presentation.

You are not yet able to understand what it means to have a soul. But when something stirs in your breast later in life, you will also experience that you have a soul. And then what has been lying dormant in your memory may also speak to you of what you were allowed to see and partly learn up here. And now, looking down at the heads of the children (they were sitting at the front), I would like to say a few words to the adults who have come to watch our eurythmy performances.

The art of eurythmy is based on Goethe's world view. Just as Goethe saw the whole plant in the green leaf, we assume that the larynx, which produces the word, with its ancillary organs, is a metamorphosis of the whole human organism. Goethe called the leaf a metamorphosis of the plant because the whole essence of the plant is hidden in the leaf. The whole plant develops step by step out of the leaf; it metamorphoses into a calyx, a flower, and a fruit leaf. Therefore, the leaf can be seen as a representative of the whole plant. And so it is with the human larynx. What the word reveals about the soul lives in the whole human organism, and the whole organism can bear witness to this.

An attempt to do this is to be the eurythmy. There is nothing arbitrary movement, but everything in the sense meant that otherwise speaks through the word. And if different people do the same, and it seems a difference in the presentation is noticeable, so that is no different than when two different people play the same Beethoven sonata. What eurythmy wants to say is the same for everyone and is perfectly adapted to what is to be expressed. Every movement and every measure of time has its meaning. It is the musical-rhythmic element that also comes into its own in the spoken word of poetry. Schiller felt this very strongly; for him, the musical-rhythmic element of the form was always the first thing in the conception of his poetry. Before he formulated the content and material, before he even formulated a single thought, he was concerned with the rhythmic theme, the musical harmony, as it stirred in his soul.

Nowadays, our poetry has sunk to a state of complete disregard for this meaningfulness. Poetry, like prose, is read only for its content, and few people still know how to read poetry. It was only in the 1870s that people were still concerned with this – and those who lived at that time could still hear something about what rhythm means in poetry.

In the past, this was something essential, and it is said that Goethe practised his “Iphigenia” with a baton on the Weimar stage. Our eurythmic performances should also be in the spirit of Goethe. And I think that despite many imperfections - especially in the pantomimes - you will find something better in them than in what ordinary dance art has to offer. The first performances by the children are by those who have only taken part in an initial course of twelve hours, without any further preliminary training. Therefore, we ask for your indulgence. Your indulgence will also have to be sought again for everything else, because, as I said, it is an art that is only just beginning to emerge and is therefore far from being able to present anything complete.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Dear attendees!

The eurythmic art that we are presenting to you today is an art form that strives to make use of new means of expression, means of expression that are inherent in the human limbs themselves. The development of this eurythmic art is based entirely on the Goethean world view, on which, after all, everything that you see realized here in this building is based. And in fact, an attempt has been made to artistically shape in a particular, limited area that which, in Goethe's great world view, has still not been fully appreciated today, and is still awaiting its full appreciation. I do not want to precede the eurythmic presentation with long-winded theoretical discussions, but what Goethe gave as the results of his observations in his world view is never one-sidedly scientific. It is always imbued with artistic spirit. And it is this Goethean artistic spirit that we would like to see permeate this art of spatial movement that we call eurythmy.

In his understanding of the living world, Goethe goes far beyond what science already recognizes today. And it is to be hoped that precisely that which Goethe himself describes as his metamorphic view will acquire great significance for the future of humanity.

If I am to present the simplest of Goethe's worldviews to you, it is that for Goethe, every single plant leaf is a whole plant – only in terms of its structure – and the whole plant is in turn a complex leaf. All the individual organs of the plant are only transformed leaves, and are therefore basically one and the same. The outer form repeats the essential in the most diverse ways. What Goethe wrote down in his magnificent essay on plants in 1790 can be applied to understanding all living things in nature. It can be applied in particular to understanding the human being.

But we can go further. We can also look at the human being in terms of Goethe's world view by interpreting the expression of a single organ as the movement of the whole person, or vice versa. The movements that the whole person can carry out, can make, appear as the repetition, the more complicated repetition, of that which an organ of the human body carries out.

For us, my dear audience, what comes into consideration here is what the human larynx and its neighboring organs carry out when a person speaks. In ordinary life and in that revelation of human nature that is expressed in poetry or the art of recitation, people's attention is drawn to what can be heard through the activity of the larynx and its neighboring organs. But if we have the opportunity to see with supersensible vision what is at work in the human larynx and its neighboring organs, if we have the opportunity to see through the tendencies and impulses of movement that are active while we speak, then we can, so to speak, form a visible language out of it, which the whole human being performs.

You need only imagine, my dear audience, that as we speak, the air is continually moving in waves through the larynx and its neighboring organs. And the manifestation of these undulating movements is, after all, the heard word. These undulations, when seen in their essence, can be transferred to the whole human being. And so, when you watch the characters on the stage, you will, in a sense, see the whole human being as a large larynx, which, in its individual parts, performs that which is performed invisibly when you listen to the speech.

These are the new means of expression for this eurythmic art of movement. According to Goethe's artistic philosophy, all art is based on a mysterious revelation of nature, on the revelation of natural laws that would never be recognized without art. For Goethe, that which can be artistically shaped moves into the sphere of knowledge. He says: Art is based on a mysterious recognition, insofar as it allows us to penetrate the essence of things visibly and tangibly.

And it is particularly interesting to penetrate that which is present in the whole human being as a possibility of movement. So you will see a visible language in eurythmy. And that which is otherwise expressed in our language, namely that which is expressed in artistically and poetically shaped language, can also be expressed through our eurythmic art.

When you see an individual in a standing position, the movements they perform are a transformed, enlarged larynx. But when the individual human being or groups of people carry out their movements in space here on the stage, these movements reveal everything that warms our language from the soul, everything that can penetrate our language as enthusiasm, everything that can also penetrate our language as pain and suffering. All these nuances of the soul that pass through language can be expressed through this spatial-movement art.

Nothing in this art is arbitrary. Just as music itself is based on — and is very similar to — the eurythmic art, or rather the eurythmic art is similar to music. Just as the musical art regularly and lawfully follows its tones in the melodious element, and how it combines tones in the harmonic element, so too is everything in the eurythmic art inwardly lawful. You must not think that it is a mere art of gesturing, a mere mimic art. It is not a peculiar attunement of what lives in the human being with the outer movement that is striven for here, but the connection between what wants to express itself in the soul and the movement that is made is a very inner, lawful one. And the sequence of movements is as internally lawful as in music.

Therefore, the art of eurythmy can be accompanied by music. On the one hand, it parallels the musical arts. On the other hand, it parallels the art of recitation. So you will hear one and the same motif of the human soul musically, see it presented in eurythmy and hear it in recitation.

One cannot recite to the eurythmic art as one likes to recite today. The eurythmic art in particular forces one to lead the art of recitation back to its actual artistic element. Today one actually recites prosaically. The highest value is placed on expressing the content of the poetry in the recitation. But for the truly artistically perceptive person, this is not the main thing. The rhythmic element, which is also expressed here in the movements of the people and groups of people in space, the rhythmic element, the whole inner shaping of the supporting element, is what is most important to the poet.

I need only remind you that a poet like Schiller never first had the content, or at least often did not first have the content of a poem in his soul; but before he knew what he was writing about, what the content of the poem should be, an indeterminate melodious tone formation went through his soul and he formed the poem according to this tone formation. Therefore, the art of recitation that must accompany our eurythmy today will still be misunderstood in many ways, because we have to go back to older forms of recitation.

I would also like to remind you that in his time, Goethe still wanted to express the formative, actually artistic aspect of the language form. When he rehearsed his “Iphigenia”, he had a baton in his hand so that the language would not be spoken prosaically, but so that the iambs, the rhythm of the language, would really be expressed. which today would be perceived as unnatural, because in our materialistic time the actual artistic feeling has declined and one also wants to emphasize the special content in recitation, in the art of lecturing.

If you do notice elements of pantomime in our eurythmic performances, I would ask you to bear in mind that we are still at the very beginning of our artistic development. This is why there are still some imperfections. But all pantomime and random gestures are actually still imperfections. If two performers, two completely different performers, were to perform the same thing eurythmically at different times and in different places, they would do so in the same way because eurythmy has an inner lawfulness, so that the individual differences would only be as great as when two pianists play one and the same Beethoven sonata according to their individual peculiarities. So this inner lawfulness is, of course, what we strive for. Everything that is striven for with the means you have just characterized for the art of eurythmy must flow into the spatial movement in such a way that the immediate view has an aesthetic, artistic effect.

But this is also the basis of Goethe's philosophy: in all art, we perceive the inner laws and harmony of nature directly, by excluding the intellect. Goethe once expressed this very beautifully when he said: “Man, placed at the summit of nature, beholds himself in turn as a whole of nature, taking in order, measure, meaning, and harmony, in order to finally rise to the production of a work of art.”

It is particularly appealing to elevate that which is inherent in man himself to a work of art. This inward disposition of the human being, conceived as a work of art, conceived as a work of art in accordance with the nature of the moving human being: that is eurythmy, the same eurythmy that vibrates invisibly in our sequence of sounds when we speak, when we name, when we repeat poetic and artistic utterances. Nevertheless, I would ask you to be lenient in your judgment of what we will present to you today. We ourselves are the harshest critics of what we are already able to do with this eurythmic art. We know that everything is still in the process of becoming, that everything is still imperfect. But we hope that we ourselves, or if not ourselves, then others, will bring it to perfection. And when what is only intended today is fully expressed as the eurythmic art, then this eurythmic art will be able to stand alongside other arts as a fully significant art. However, we do not want to compete with neighboring arts, such as the now so popular dance arts. Eurythmy should be something completely different. It should express what the human being has within himself as a movement disposition: soulful movement.

And so we also believe that eurythmy will one day play a major role in teaching and education, in that mere physical movement in gymnastics will then be imbued with soul, in that eurythmy will take the place of mere physical gymnastics. This will probably enable eurythmy to be integrated into the overall culture of the human spirit, on the one hand as an art form and on the other as something that plays a major role in the overall education of the human being.

We do indeed know that all of this is still in its infancy today, and so I ask you to bear with us as we perform. Regarding the program before the intermission, I would like to add that the Nietzsche poem 'My Happiness' will be inserted after 'Stroll'. So the program before the intermission has been extended by two numbers.

What Goethe's world view is capable of is not something that arises one-sidedly from a merely theoretical observation of the world. Everything in Goethe that leads to an idea about nature and the human world is at the same time imbued with a true artistic feeling. In Goethe, art is scientifically illuminated, and science is artistically formed in thought. Therefore, his world view can be used to bridge the gap in artistic expression everywhere.

Now, it is easy to express how he views the development of life in nature. In the individual plant leaf, no matter how simply formed, Goethe saw the blueprint for an entire plant. And in turn, he saw the whole plant as nothing more than a plant leaf with a complicated structure. So, Goethe imagined that the entire plant consists of many, many individual plants. This is a view that can be applied to all living things, especially to the pinnacle of life in nature, to humans. In doing so, one can initially think only of the metamorphosis of forms, as Goethe did as a morphologist. One can think that the overall form of an organism is a more complicated design than the form of a single organ. This is how Goethe initially developed the idea.

But one can also consider that what an organ performs in a living organism is, in miniature, the same as what the whole organism performs, and vice versa. One can think that the activity of the whole organism is a more complicated manifestation of what the individual organ performs. This thought, the fruitfulness of which, as already mentioned, will only be fully recognized in the future, also by science, this thought underlies our eurythmic art.

When we listen to a person speaking, our attention is naturally drawn first to the sequence of sounds, to what is expressed in speech in the tones. But for those who see the supersensible in the sensory, for those who have intuitive vision and can penetrate the secrets of nature through this intuitive vision, there is an invisible movement in the larynx and neighboring organs with each individual sound. And the sequence of sounds is manifested in invisible movements.

We can also visualize how, although not in the visible, the movement of the larynx and its neighboring organs is expressed in terms of what is known to science. You know that what one speaks, what sounds out of the speech organism, is transformed into waves of movement in the air. We do not see these waves of movement; we hear what has been spoken. The person with supersensible vision sees what lies in the waves of the air while we speak. He sees it in the mysterious movements of the larynx and its neighboring organs. The larynx is a single organ of the human organism.

Just as the whole plant is a more complex leaf in the Goethean sense, so the whole human being with his limbs can be called upon to move, which only more complexly represent that which the larynx represents as a single organ when speaking. Then that essence of the whole human being will be expressed which one can call a visible language. And this eurythmy is the visible language we are striving for. What you see of the individual person on the stage through the movements of the limbs of the human organism is, so to speak, the visible, moving larynx and its neighboring organs: the whole person becomes the larynx through eurythmy. Thus, what is otherwise present supersensibly in the larynx's movement patterns is revealed outwardly.

One could also express it differently: you will know, esteemed attendees, if you practice even a little self-knowledge, that actually, when we listen to a person, there is always an inner supersensible art of imitation in us. We hold back, and it is simply true that we listen by holding back certain supersensible movements in our organism that resonate with the vibrations of the speaker. These movements, which we hold back when we listen in the usual way, standing or sitting still, are presented to the eye in eurythmy. The listener who moves, who, as it were, shows the reflection of what is being said everywhere in the way he listens, that is the eurythmist.

In addition to what I have already mentioned, “the whole person becomes the larynx”, so that what is spoken by the person is warmed by the feeling of the soul, that it is imbued with joy, enthusiasm, pain, suffering; that moods vibrate through. All this can also be expressed through eurythmy. We express it, not by setting a stationary human being in motion or having a human being in one place perform eurythmy, but by having the individual human being move in space, or having groups of people in space form certain shapes or perform certain movements in relation to each other. When the human being moves in space, it expresses what vibrates through language in the soul as mood, as enthusiasm, as suffering and as joy. All that is expressed in artistically formed language by the poet in rhythm and rhyme – all this is expressed through movement.

In this context, I would ask you to bear in mind that the art of eurythmy is not facial expression, pantomime or the art of gestures, and that it has nothing to do with ordinary dance. In all these art forms, what lives in the soul is expressed through a direct gesture or the like, through a direct movement. Eurythmy is something like music itself. There is nothing arbitrary about the movement that is performed, but something so lawful in the individual movement and sequence of movements that one can say: just as the harmonies are in music, how the melody, the sequence of notes reveal themselves, so there is an inner lawfulness in what is represented by eurythmy.

Therefore, it may well be that you see each eurythmist expressing only their own individual possibilities – nothing arbitrary. The opposite is the case. Just as when a Beethoven sonata is performed by two people on the piano, different individual elements arise, but the thing performed is the same, so it is when two people or two groups of people perform the same thing in eurythmy. There is an individual conception in it, but fundamentally it goes beyond any arbitrariness - as in music itself.

What the human being otherwise reveals in speaking, singing, and music, in fact in all artistically shaped speech, becomes visible speech in eurythmy. Therefore, on the one hand, you will see parallels between music, which expresses what lives in the human soul in a different way, and what is expressed in eurythmy, which is done in a different way. You will see the eurythmic presentation accompanied by a recitation that is intended to reflect the artistic, poetic language, which is then presented in the eurythmic art as an accompaniment to the recitation. It shows that, when eurythmy is accompanied by recitation, this recitation itself must go back to better times of the art of recitation than we have today. Today, one loves to recite, I would say, prosaically, emphasizing the prose content, placing the main emphasis on the content being expressed poetically. If we go further back in the development of the art of recitation, we see how the content is, so to speak, only taken as an opportunity to present rhythms, inner movement, the actual artistic element. Not only that in certain primeval times of art the reciters who performed, I would like to say in primitive eurythmy accompanied what they recited, and placed the highest value on the structure of the verses, on that which is otherwise artistic design. In actual poetry, we also find that the poem arises out of an inner music, that is, out of the rhythm and formation of the sound. We know that Schiller did not begin with the content of many of his poems in his soul, but that the content of the poem could be quite distant for him. But there was a melodious element in his soul, and this still wordless, still thought-free melodious element, he then put it into words and added, so to speak, the content of the poem. Today, the recitation is based on prose, on the novella. This would not work with eurythmy.

That is why it is so easily misunderstood that what had to emerge as an art of recitation in eurythmy. This art of recitation must in turn emphasize the true artistic nature of the shaped language, not what today so easily loves the merely prosaic in terms of content.

In so far as you will still see mimicry or pantomime, I ask you to regard it as something that is still imperfect. For I may well, having said these words about the intentions of the eurythmic art, I may well emphasize that we know very well that the eurythmic art is only just beginning, that it is perhaps only the will of an intention. But in this intention lies something that can become an art, that can stand alongside the other arts as fully entitled. Not only can the artistic be grasped by people in a truly Goethean sense through this eurythmic art, but one can also believe that it can have an educational and didactic effect in the future: as a soul-filled form of exercise alongside gymnastics that is purely based on physiology and physicality. And in education, as soul-inspired physical exercise that is also an art (it can also be seen as eurythmy), we will gradually introduce a soul-inspired art of movement for the human organism into our education and pedagogy at the Waldorf school – in contrast to soulless physical exercise that is aimed purely at physical culture. Eurythmy can be fruitful in these two ways.

Essentially, of course, it depends on the fact that the human being is the highest being on the scale of the organic, of the living, that we know on earth for the time being, and that therefore a truly supreme expression of natural law can come about in him. Therefore, if we educate the human being himself to be an instrument of artistic expression, what Goethe hopes for from human artistic activity can be fulfilled to the highest degree, in that he says: “By being placed at the pinnacle of nature, man in turn produces a pinnacle within himself, taking measure, harmony, order and meaning together, and finally rising to the production of the work of art. In this, Goethe sees something like the solution to the riddle of the world, when humanity can, in the mirror of art, receive back what the world holds in its secrets. And when man regards himself as the instrument of this reflection, then he is evidently fulfilling something that can be understood as a summary of the most diverse artistic motifs.

But I ask you again to look at what we are able to offer with some leniency, because it is a beginning, and we are our own harshest critics, we are well aware of what is still imperfect, but we believe that this imperfection, if it is further developed by ourselves or by others, will become a fully-fledged art form alongside other art forms.

Dear attendees! The art of eurythmy is still in the early stages of development. One could even call it an experiment in intent. Therefore, it will be permitted to say a few words about the nature of the same before the presentation.

Everything that is being attempted and that will probably be perfected in the future with regard to this eurythmic art is based on Goethe's conception of the world and life. This Goethean view of the world and life is accompanied by a very special artistic attitude and a special concept of art. And it is precisely this that is so special about Goethe: he understood how to bridge the gap between artistic attitude, artistic power and general world view for his own perspective. In this way, it could also be attempted on the basis of Goetheanism, on which we stand with our entire anthroposophically oriented spiritual science; it could be attempted in a very special field – in the field of human movement art – to create something ourselves that will be an expression of Goethe's artistic attitude. Therefore, I ask you not to look at what we can offer today in this direction as if we wanted to compete with any of the arts and art forms that are in some sense related to our eurythmic art. We certainly do not want to do that. We know very well that the art of dance and similar arts, which one might confuse with ours, have now reached such a high level of perfection that we cannot compete at all. But we do not want to compete; rather, our aim is to introduce something fundamentally new into the general artistic development of humanity. And without becoming theoretical, I would like to explain very briefly how our attempt is connected with the greatness of Goethe's world view.

The truly significant, the great and decisive aspect of Goethe's world view has by no means been sufficiently appreciated. Goethe was able to orient his world of ideas, his world of cognitive sensation, in such a way that he could truly make the ascent from the science of the non-living – which basically still includes all of today's science – to a certain knowledge of the living. It only appears to be a theoretical matter when everything points to Goethe's great idea of the metamorphosis of organic beings and a single organic entity. In Goethe's sense, one need only imagine how a single plant comes into being as a living being, how it grows, perfects itself and reaches the summit of its becoming. For Goethe, every single plant leaf – whether a green plant leaf or a colored flower petal – is basically a whole plant, only more simply formed than the whole plant, and again the whole plant is for him only an intricate leaf.

This view, which is tremendously significant, applied to everything that is alive for Goethe. Every living being is formed in such a way that, as a whole, it is the more complicated formation of each of its individual parts; and each individual part, in turn, reveals – in a simpler form – the whole living being. This view can now be applied to the expressions and activities of a living being, and in particular of the highest living being known to man within his world: man himself.

And so, based on Goethe, we can also say: in what human language is, a single element of the entire human nature is also given. In what a person expresses through the larynx and its neighboring organs, speaking from the depths of his soul, something is given that is a single organ expression, a revelation of the human being. For those who are able to see what forces, possibilities for activity and movement are actually present in the human larynx when speaking, especially when speaking artistically, when speaking poetry as well as when singing, for those who can see this and are not limited to looking beyond what the larynx accomplishes in terms of movements, and merely listening to what is accomplished in terms of movements, it is possible for the person to transfer to the whole human being what otherwise only comes to expression in the individual organ - in the larynx and its neighborhood - in speaking.

It is possible to make the whole person a larynx, so that he moves in his limbs as, I would say, the larynx is predisposed to move when a person speaks or sings. One could also say: when one speaks, one is dealing with the wave motion of the air. Sounds are movements of the air. Of course, in everyday life we do not see these movements of the air. Those who look can therefore perceive the possibilities of movement that they can transfer to the whole human being, to his limbs. Then a visible language arises in which the arms and other limbs of the human being move in a lawful way. And through this visible language, the poetic-artistic aspect of language, the song-like aspect of music, is brought to revelation, and a completely new art form arises. This is to be our eurythmy.

What you see here is, in the first instance, nothing other than the human being's laryngeal movement transferred to the whole human being in an artistic way. What is now supposed to be art and must make a corresponding aesthetic impression when it is directly observed, if it is to have an artistic effect when observed directly, has of course arisen from the depths of human nature at its source. Thus one can say: what is simply there in man because he is a human organism should be brought forth from him.

There is nothing artificial in eurythmy. All gestures and pantomime are avoided. Just as in music it is not about expressing something through any old note, but about observing a lawfulness in the succession of notes, so here it is also not about the hand or something similar making any old movement, but about the human limbs making lawful eurythmic movements in succession. Thus everything arbitrary is avoided, and where something still occurs, you can regard it as a sign that something imperfect still exists there. If two people or two groups of people were to represent one and the same thing, they would only differ in the way they presented it, just as two different piano players will play a Beethoven sonata differently.

In eurythmy, everything is modeled on the movements of the larynx and its neighboring organs. But human speech is imbued with warmth of soul, with enthusiasm, with joy, with pain and suffering, with all kinds of inner crises. Everything that resonates through human language as an inner expression of the soul can be expressed by us in the relationships between the various forms, the groups, and through what a person can reveal through movements in space. In the same way, the inner mood of the soul, what penetrates from the depths of the soul to the surface, comes to expression. On the one hand, you will see what visible speech is.

We will let it be accompanied either by music, which is only the other, parallel expression of the same thing, or mainly by recitation, by poetry. In this context, I must note that, while the art of eurythmy is accompanied by poetry, it must be borne in mind that what is today the art of declamation, the art of recitation, is very much in decline. If one wants to accompany the art of eurythmy with poetry, one must go back to the old, good forms of recitation, the art of recitation. It is not a matter of expressing the ordinary narrative, the content of a poem through emphasis, but rather of expressing the actual artistic element through the recitation, apart from the purely narrative, from the content: the rhythm, the rhyme, the artistic vibrancy of a poem, everything that exists outside of the content, in other words - the poetic and musical.

There is little understanding of this today. But one need only remember that Goethe conducted his “Iphigenia” with a baton, and one need only keep in mind that Schiller, before he even brought the prose content of a poem to life in his writing, had a general melody in his soul, that is, he started from the general artistic idea. Today's emphasis on content when reciting is, so to speak, nonsense, it is decadent. It would not be possible to accompany eurythmy with this art of recitation, which only focuses on content. Therefore, we must return to what is little understood by our contemporaries as an art of recitation. But in this way we believe we can emphasize an element in the present that is as artistic as possible through this eurythmic art and thereby bring to life something of Goethe's artistic spirit. Goethe says so beautifully: “When nature begins to reveal her secret to someone, they feel an irresistible longing for her most worthy interpreter: art.” He sees in art a revelation of the secret laws of nature, which would not be revealed without art.

This is particularly evident when we see how man himself, in his movement, becomes the expression of a visible, living language. Goethe says elsewhere: Art consists in a kind of recognition, in that we grasp the essence of things in tangible and visible forms. And the highest of external nature, the human being, is revealed to us when we can visualize what is in his movements and present it to our eyes. Therefore, we feel Goethe's saying so much: “[In that man is placed at the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature, which in itself has to produce a summit again. To do so, he elevates himself by permeating himself with all perfection and virtue, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art [...].

We believe that through this eurythmic art, which is brought forth from the human being himself, at the same time something is visibly placed before the human eye like an artistic revelation of the mystery of the world, which is expressed in the highest sense in the human being. So far, however, only a beginning of all this exists. We know this very well and we are the harshest critics of the imperfections that still cling to our eurythmic artistic experiment. With this in mind, I ask you to also take in today's presentation. If it finds understanding among our contemporaries, then it will lead to it being further perfected. For however convinced we are that it is still in its infancy today, we are equally convinced that it has such principles within it that it can be brought to such perfection, either by ourselves or by others, that this eurythmic art, among other things, will be able to present itself as fully justified.

Goethe attempts to penetrate from the knowledge and awareness of the dead to the knowledge and awareness of the living. He asserts the power of observation over theory. The individual leaf is the whole plant, the plant is only the complicated elaboration of the individual limb. This can be applied again to the human being, who is only one limb of the whole world. We produce speech through our larynx, and it is received through the ear. But it is also possible to observe these movements with supersensible organs. These are artistic movements that can be seen when speaking. And these movements can be transferred to the whole human being, to the whole moving human being, who reveals the movements that otherwise underlie the larynx and its neighboring organs: speech that has become visible. The joy, suffering, etc. that resonates through the soul when speaking can be transferred to groups and expressed there.

In eurythmy, it is the sequence of movements that is important – just as it is the sequence of tones in music.

If one and the same poem were to be presented in two different ways, it would only be presented in an individually different way to the extent that a Beethoven sonata is performed differently by a particular player in two different places. There is nothing arbitrary about this art of movement; everything follows laws, rhythm, harmony and so on. The content of the poem is only one opportunity, like rhythm, to bring out the artistic side. With Schiller, for example, it was not the content of a poem that came first, but in his play something musical, rhythmic trembled, and only then did it become poetry. Goethe rehearsed 'Iphigenia' with the baton with the performing artists.

It is particularly appealing when a person not only creates works of art but also turns themselves into a work of art. This is how eurythmy is to be understood.

“Symbolum” by J. W. v. Goethe with musical addition by Leopold van der Pals
“Zueignung“ by Novalis
“From the Song of Solomon” by an unknown poet from the Middle Ages
Opening “We want to search...” with music by Max Schuurman
“The last word” by Fercher von Steinwand with musical accompaniment by Max Schuurman
Prelude ‘We are looking for...’ with music by Leopold van der Pals ‘Reconciliation’ by J. W. v. Goethe
From ‘Chinese-German Years and Times of Day’ by J- W. v. Goethe
“Er ist's“ by Eduard Mörike From the collection of poems ‘Der Tag’ by Hans Reinhart Humorous prelude with music by Jan Stuten
“Der Tanz”, “Die beiden Esel”, “Philanthropisch”, “Die Wald geiss”, “Die Fingur”, from: “Die Galgenlieder ”by Christian Morgenstern
“Gretchen in the Cathedral” scene from ‘Faust I’ by J. W. v. Goethe

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words to introduce our eurythmy presentation. This eurythmic art is not meant to be a dance art or any other art that could be considered a neighboring art. It should be something that presents itself as an independent art movement alongside that which currently exists as a dance art or similar. What we recognize here as the eurythmic art was conceived and born out of the Goethean worldview, out of Goetheanism. We shall only understand what we understand by Goetheanism here if we think not of Goethe, who died in 1832, but of the Goethean genius, which lives on and must be felt anew by each generation, and whose artistic and world-view intentions can be taken up by each generation and developed in one direction or another.

In a limited area - just as otherwise in the large the whole building and everything that we represent here comes from Goetheanism - in a limited area, our eurythmic art is also born out of a Goethean artistic and Goethean world-view attitude.

I do not wish to theorize, but to point out the source of this eurythmic art. Of course, everything that is artistic must make an aesthetic impression when seen directly. But the things make an aesthetic impression precisely because they have been brought forth from those sources of the existence of nature and the world, which the most rational mind does not penetrate, but which, as it were, come out of the infinite depths of the nature of things. And so, without becoming theoretical, I may point out how this eurythmic art is born out of the whole spirit of Goethe's world view. That is the significant thing about Goethe's artistic attitude: it does not present itself as something quite separate from the rest of human perception. Rather, Goethe is imbued with the conviction that what what is to be created artistically is connected with the most intimate powers of cognition, with nature and the essence of things, insofar as we are able to perceive them through the eye or through other organs. Goethe sees only a developed leaf in the individual plant, which is intricately designed. For Goethe, a single plant leaf is an entire plant, only in an elementary, primitive form. The whole plant is a more complicated leaf for Goethe.

This view, fully developed, will mean much, much more for the human world view than it does today. For in such a view we shall find the foundation for everything that can go out from our science of the dead to knowledge of the living. But what Goethe initially applied only to forms in terms of view can also be applied to movement.

Our eurythmy art should be a movement art that uses the whole human organism with its movements as its means. And so one can say: the human larynx with its neighboring organs is the organ of expression for audible speech. But for someone who can see the movement pattern in the human larynx, who can see what is not seen in ordinary life when we listen to someone speaking, for such a person there is a possibility of saying: a movement pattern of the human larynx and its neighboring organs is connected with every sound, with every sequence of sounds. What is present as a movement system in the human larynx and its neighboring organs can be transferred to the whole human organism. We can set the human limbs in motion in such a way that they precisely imitate what is present in the larynx for the purpose of human speech. Then, as the whole human being becomes a living, moving larynx on the stage before us, a visible language arises before us. And since the human being is an extract of the whole world, a real microcosm, this language, this visible language, is indeed an expression of the deepest secrets of the world.

What I am now going to explain, I would say in the abstract, must be felt aesthetically in the movements that come to view. And so what the individual person makes of the movement of his limbs becomes the expression of vocalization, of the sequence of sounds. While everything that flows against language, from inner warmth of soul, from joy and suffering, from enthusiasm and from everything else that vibrates in our language, while that is expressed in the movements that an individual makes in space or that a person makes in relation to other people in group movements. The movements thus become the expression of the soul in language, but at the same time they also express the artistic transformation of language: they become the expression of rhyme, the expression of rhythm, the expression of meter. So everything that lies in language is also expressed in this visible language. This is the art of eurythmy.

In our work, it is accompanied on the one hand by recitation and on the other by music. For what music puts into the tones is expressed by us through the movements. And the two arts appear as parallel arts.

Likewise, what is presented in the recitation is also expressed through the eurythmic art. However, for this to happen, the art of recitation must return to what it once was. Today, the art of recitation is in decline. Even that which is most admired in the art of recitation today is actually the most inartistic. That which is prosaic in language, the content of language, the narrative, is what is attempted today in the emphasis on the form of expression of the art of recitation. What we must attempt here is what, behind the mere content, should only be recognizable as a kind of register, lies behind this content in the treatment of language, in the actual artistic aspect of language. That is what we are concerned with here. Therefore, those who particularly love the art of recitation today will find something paradoxical in the way that recitation sometimes has to be done, especially in the art of eurythmy. Recitation cannot be done differently for eurythmy. And anyone who knows what ancient recitation was will also perceive this return to true recitation as a renewal, a reinvigoration of the artistic.

I need only remind you that when Goethe rehearsed his “Iphigenia”, he rehearsed with a baton, as he says, so that he emphasized the musicality that lies behind the outwardly prosaic. Goethe would have been horrified by what is called recitation today. I need only remind you that Schiller, before he had the content, the word content of a poem in his soul, first had something melodious in his soul, something wordless and melodious, felt the musical aspect first, only then found the words for it.

All these things must be taken into account if we want to go back to what ultimately still came from the time in which we recreated in the dance movements, but also in the human poetic language, that which is a universal law. And we would like to point this out again with our eurythmic art.

I would only ask you to be lenient with the presentation itself. For everything I have discussed here is more of an ideal towards which we are striving. We are more or less only at the beginning with what we have developed. But I must add that nothing in this eurythmic art is arbitrary. If you were to believe, for example, that any movement has more than a momentary connection with the inner soul movement, then you would misunderstand the eurythmic art. Everything that appears in this eurythmic art has an inner lawfulness, just as the lawfulness of tones in music is itself. The succession of eurythmic movements is such as the succession in melodious song is inner lawfulness.

If you see some pantomime, some gestures, some facial expressions, it is because we have not yet achieved the full perfection of our art that it should have. There should be no pantomime, no facial expressions, no gestures. When two people or two groups of people in completely different places perform one and the same eurythmic content, it is only as different as when two pianists play one and the same Beethoven sonata. Otherwise, what you will see on stage and what you will hear through the art of recitation is one and the same.

In this sense, I ask you to understand what we want to develop as a kind of Gesamtkunst, because if what is organically possible for a person to move can really be artistically developed, then it is truly the case that what can be applied to it is what is so beautifully expressed in Goethe's saying as a Goethean artistic attitude: When man has reached the summit of nature, he in turn produces an entire nature, taking order, harmony, measure and meaning together, in order to finally rise to the production of the work of art. And if Goethe was of the opinion that art is a manifestation of secret natural laws that would never be revealed without it, then it must be said that if one artistically embodies and reveals what is inherent in man himself in terms of secret natural laws, then a kind of summary, a kind of synthesis of the various arts, is indeed given. In eurythmy, one can perhaps feel what is so beautifully expressed in another of Goethe's words: “When nature reveals her secrets, one feels a deep longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.” Those who want to penetrate the secrets of the human organism – that is how one could describe it – feel a certain inner yearning to artistically reshape the range of movements in the human body.

These are all intentions. And I ask you to look at what you can already find developed in these intentions today with the same tolerance with which one looks at a beginning. Perhaps not everything has yet been understood in the way it should be understood. But if this artistic trend is taken into account by contemporaries, then there will certainly be the incentive to develop it. And we hope – we are our own harshest critics and we know full well that what we can offer at present is not yet completely satisfactory – but we hope that this art can be developed, either by us or probably by others, to such an extent that it can one day stand alongside other fully-fledged art movements as something fully legitimate.