The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In honor of the visit of Hendrik zu Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Prince of the Netherlands (1876–1934) at the Goetheanum, the “Prologue in Heaven” from Goethe's “Faust” was performed and introduced by an address by Rudolf Steiner.

Program of the performance

• A cheerful prelude with music by Leopold van der Pals. “Nectar Droplets” by J. W. von Goethe
• Opening “Look within, look around you” with music by Leopold van der Pals
• “The Fairy Tale of Loving and Hating“ from The Portal of Initiation by Rudolf Steiner
• Opening ‘Planet Dance’ with music by Max Schuurman ‘Greeting to the Elements’ by Friedrich Rückert
• “To the Mistral” by Friedrich Nietzsche
• “Zum neuen Jahr“ (To the New Year) by J. W. von Goethe Musical prelude by Leopold van der Pals
• “An Elise” (To Elise) by Friedrich Hebbel
• “Auf die Sixtinische Madonna“ (On the Sistine Madonna) by Friedrich Hebbel Music from ‘Faust II’ by Jan Stuten
• “Prolog im Himmel” (Prologue to Heaven) from “Faust I” by J. W. Goethe

Perhaps I may take the liberty of saying a few words in advance about the following ideas about the meaning and intentions that we associate with the art of eurythmy. A piece of this eurythmic art is to be presented.

We see this eurythmic art as something, I would say, like a renewal, but in a thoroughly modern form, a renewal of the ancient temple dance art. If we think of inaugurating something of this kind today, it is of course necessary to consider the whole meaning of human artistic development and the meaning of human cultural development in general, if anything that is to be new is to come into the present. If we look at the various branches of human spiritual development today, we see that they coexist side by side. Art, religion, science, in fact all human spiritual movements, actually arise from one root. And if you look at the divine-sacred secrets of humanity in older epochs, in the original cultures, so to speak – they could be regarded, insofar as they could be taken from the senses, as beautiful art. The same thing could also be seen as having an effect on the capacity for knowledge, and then it was science. But the same thing could also be seen as having an effect on human devotion, and then it was religion.

In this way, religion, art and science were divided, and the individual cultural branches were in turn divided into the individual arts. When we consider an individual branch of art today, especially one that is to exist, then it is a matter of placing ourselves in this whole spiritual context, which shines and glimmers up to us from the history of humanity.

Something like this approached us when we were prompted, one might say by fate, to think about inaugurating this eurythmy. This is not about creating something arbitrary, purely out of fantasy, but about placing something into the world that is taken from the spiritual, from the spiritual laws of the world's existence itself. But everything that can be placed into the world can be found in some form in the human being. The human being is truly a small world, a microcosm within the great world of the macrocosm. This is taken from the workings and weaving of an organic system of the human being, the workings and weaving of the invisible forces that are always at work — we call them the etheric forces in our spiritual science — that are always at work when we speak or think. We not only have this visible physical larynx, which anatomy or physiology has at hand, but behind it the invisible mass of forces of the larynx and the organs that connect to it. There, as we speak, movements of a locally limited part of this organism are revealed to the seeing eye.

Now it is a matter of elevating to art that which is otherwise there by nature, entirely in the style and sense in which Goethe conceived a modified concept of art in the manner of his theory of metamorphosis. After all, when he wanted to form an idea of Greek works of art in Italy, he said: There is necessity, there is God. There, he said, the divine is revealed in man. And for him it was about man coming to an awareness of his connection with the whole universe in every art. We act in his spirit when we transfer that which works in the invisible part of the larynx in local demarcation in nature to the whole human being.

And so we first transfer into movements of the human limbs what is otherwise only carried out in speaking, singing, and music by the invisible part of the larynx and its neighboring organs. There is no pantomime here, but everything is strictly logical. Every single vowel returns, returns in its corresponding contexts, sentence forms, and structure of language and music. All this should also be expressed in this spatial-movement art of the human being.

Now, when we speak and sing, we not only move the invisible larynx, but we also send, into the movements of the larynx, I would say our soul, our heart, our whole being. This is only in the undertones, one would like to say, in the undertone of what we express. When we bring warmth, enthusiasm, rhythm, artistic expression into what we say, then there is something contained in the speaking. We dissolve this and it appears in the group dances. The movements that the group performs, which arise from the position of the individual personalities in the groups, correspond to what is not actually performed by the person, but only predisposed in this invisible larynx, what is undertone. What the individual person performs for themselves in space is a complete reflection of what the invisible larynx performs in every speech of the person. So it is essentially a transformation of the whole person into a living larynx, a bringing into relationship with the individual person, just as the larynx comes into relationship in mutual discussion. Nature has moved up into art. One could say: art is higher nature in nature. - That is meant here in the corresponding art.

I would ask you to consider this branch, which is an episode, an insertion, of our actual spiritual scientific work, in such a way that it is only just beginning as it is now presented. And they are only weak attempts that are to be carried out. But everything that comes into the world can only come into the world in a germinal way, especially when it appears as a first attempt. It is as such quite unassuming attempts that we are permitted to present what we now offer in individual poems and in a eurythmic arrangement of Goethe's “Prologue in Heaven”, the beginning of “Faust”.

The first public eurythmy performance in Zurich was scheduled for October 18, 1918. For this performance, which was officially canceled at short notice, while the lecture that had also been scheduled could take place, Rudolf Steiner drafted an announcement or poster text that exists in two variations and a fair copy by Marie Steiner. Ultimately, the first public eurythmy performance could not take place until February 24, 1919 in Zurich; see pp. 49-161. In the Zurich lecture of October 17, 1918, Rudolf Steiner briefly mentioned the cancellation of the event.

From the lecture Zurich, October 17, 1918

We ourselves have tried to develop efforts that are close to one area of spiritual science, to bring the gestural aspect of language back into view in what we call eurythmy, where we have tried to get the whole person moving and to express, through the movements of the limbs , through movements of the human form in space, through group movements, through the relationships between people, to express in a gestural way that which is otherwise also noticed in the gesture, but only not as a gesture, and which is expressed through the human larynx and its neighboring organs. We call this kind of movement art, which must penetrate humanity as something new, eurythmy. And we here in Zurich wanted to tie in with this lecture with a eurythmic presentation. It has to be postponed because we were given permission to give these lectures in the current difficult times, but not to give this eurythmic performance. It would have shown how the whole human being becomes the larynx, as it were. By becoming aware of what language is, we arrive at something that will become particularly important, quite fundamentally important for life in the present and the future.

From the address in Dornach, November 3, 1918

When we were in the very satisfactory position of being able to organize a public eurythmy performance in Zurich, we had to decide on introductory words for the philistines we were inviting – well, how should I put it, it's always on the tip of my tongue, something disrespectful – that could then be printed. And I also wanted to emphasize for this matter of eurythmy, which will certainly be extraordinarily important for the world at some point, that in what is now to be presented to the public, one has a beginning, an intention, which is to be developed, which is to undergo its development, which is to progress. Criticism of beginnings can only be properly addressed if we always remain aware that these are beginnings.

Announcement of the planned performance in Zurich, October 18, 1918

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

On October 18, 1918, a performance of the Eurythmic Art will take place at the Conservatory at 8 p.m.
It will be presented by Tatiana Kisseleff with the participation of Elisabeth Dollfuss, Annemarie Groh, Annemarie Donath and others. The poems on which the performance is based will be recited by Marie Steiner; the accompanying music is by Leopold van der Pals, Max Schuurman and Jan Stuten. The eurythmic art form is based on the intentions and indications of Rudolf Steiner. Seats: 5, 3 and 2 francs.

The program of this second public performance was the same as the previous one in Zurich

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words about our performance. This will seem all the more justified given that the art form we want to present cannot yet be considered complete, but rather a beginning, a will, or I could also say the inclination towards a will, to express the human soul in a certain way in a particular art form. We know very well that more accomplished things are being done in the related fields, of which there are many today, in terms of artistic perfection. We know that we cannot compete with what is being achieved in the related arts. But we do not want to compete with them either.

For us, it is not about dance-like or similar art creations in addition to others, but rather about seeking forms of movement art based on certain foundations that are not otherwise sought. This means seeking the expression of spiritual experience through movements of the human organism, through the positions of groups of people in relation to each other, and also through the movement of positions of groups of people in relation to each other. What I have just described, which underlies the matter as a basis, is something that is rooted in Goethe's world view. Goethe's great, powerful world view is expressed in various fields. Above all, it expresses itself in the fact that Goethe found ways to judge that which lives and exists in the world from a certain deeper, spiritual point of view.

Our endeavor is based, first of all, on the way in which Goethe himself observed life and the forms of living beings. Goethe's great and significant theory of metamorphosis is fundamental. I do not wish to be theoretical in these introductory remarks, but only to point out how Goethe observed the growth and weaving of plants, and then also of animals and humans, and how it became clear to him that a deeper, intuitive look at this growth shows how each individual organ is a metamorphosis, a transformation of another organ of the same being. Goethe saw the leaf in the plant blossom, and in turn the plant blossom in the fruit; the same applies to animals and human beings. But now it becomes clear to Goethe that not only is each individual organ a transforming organ of other organs, but that the whole living being is also only a transformation of an [organ], so to speak: every organ is the whole plant, the whole animal.

What Goethe first saw, I would say more scientifically, can also be fully felt artistically, without becoming soberly intellectual. And it is an attempt to feel artistically with regard to the movement systems within the human being. If I want to briefly describe in a few words what underlies our art form, I would say: the whole human being should express movements that represent him as a single larynx. So that one can see in what the human being expresses through his movements that which one otherwise hears when the human being, through the individual members of the organism, through the larynx and its neighboring organs, forms sounds, combinations of sounds, and tones and combinations of tones out of himself.

There is, however, a need to look artistically and intuitively at the whole area that underlies the human larynx. Then we find that in what the human being does not see in the processes of the cabbage head, but which is expressed only in what then becomes speech and sound, there is something that is more determined in the disposition than in what actually comes to expression and what passes over into the manifestation of word and sound, of word combinations and sound combinations. All that is expressed through the larynx can be visibly expressed by the whole human being. We express this by letting the whole human being make movements that proceed in the same way as the movements that the larynx produces when speaking, singing, and so on.

But there is something else in all that a person can express through the larynx. The whole soul speaks along with the sensations and movements that we express. When we express ourselves through speech, there is an underlying mood of the soul to what is revealed through language: rhythm, pure artistic assonance is expressed. This is in turn expressed by us by bringing groups into movement and into position in relation to one another. First of all, what we present through individual people is a representation of the whole human being as a large larynx, but visible, not audible. Everything we present in groups is what permeates word and sound as sensation, glows as mood and the like, presented in language as purely artistic rhythm, alliteration, assonance and so on.

And one can say: In this way we are trying to achieve an art form that does not give an instantaneous expression of the human soul, but which, according to certain laws, gives a lasting expression of the soul. Just as in speech, the larynx makes movements that are based on certain laws, whereby combinations of sounds and tones arise, and just as there is something in the lawfulness as there is in the organ, we do not try to express the soul life through facial expressions or pantomime. We do not seek to achieve our art form in this way, but by basing our movements on an inner lawfulness, which is just as internally structured as the musical work of art itself is internally structured in harmony and melody. In our system, the individual or groups of people cannot express anything that flows out of them only in the moment through pantomime or mime. Rather, what is subjectively expressed by the individual person is about the same as the relationship between the performance of a Beethoven sonata by one artist and that of another. In this way, we exclude everything arbitrary, everything subjective; all facial expressions, pantomime plays no role for us, not the individual gesture, but only the connection with the individual work of art. If you do see gestures, pantomime, facial expressions, then please consider this an imperfection of our art form; we have certainly not yet reached the stage where we would like you to see them, as I have just mentioned.

Of course, our art is supported by music and recitation, so that on the one hand the soul can be heard, and on the other hand, as I said, through the whole person, who has become the larynx, it comes to visible representation.

Dear esteemed audience, please do not take this evening's performance as something we imagine is already a perfect art – you will see many imperfections. But take it as a beginning, and you may do it justice to such an extent that you see: one can also dare this attempt in this field alongside related arts. Do us the favor of characterizing from this point of view; forgive the mistakes that you may see. We will endeavor to correct the mistakes, and from this beginning, through us or through others who work in this field, much more perfect work in this field will yet come about.

• TIAOAIT: Words to the spirit and love from “The Portal of Initiation” by R. Steiner, with a musical prelude by Leopold van der Pals
• “What art thou doing, wind...” by C. F. Meyer
• Planetary Dance by Rudolf Steiner with musical accompaniment by Leopold van der Pals
• “Divine Meal” by C. F. Meyer with musical accompaniment by Leopold van der Pals “Noch einmal” by C. F. Meyer with musical accompaniment by Leopold van der Pals
• ““The Seasons” by Hans Reinhart
• “On the Sistine Madonna” by Friedrich Hebbel
• Hallelujah
• From the “Choir of Basic Instincts” (4th Choir) by Fercher v. Steinwand
• “The Son of the Muses” J. W. v. Goethe with musical prelude by Leopold van der Pals
• “Lonely” (crows) by Friedrich Nietzsche with musical accompaniment by Leopold van der Pals
• Musical prelude “Fateful Question” by Leopold van der Pals
• “Night Song” by Friedrich Hebbel
• “The End of All Things” by Hans Reinhart
• Elegiac prelude with music by Leopold van der Pals Satirical prelude with music by Leopold van der Pals “Km. 21” by Christian Morgenstern
• “Bim-Bam-Bum” by Christian Morgenstern
• “Fried flounder” by Paul Scheerbart with musical prelude by Leopold van der Pals
• “The Aesthetic Weasel” by Christian Morgenstern, a cheerful prelude with music by Jan Stuten, “Rose of Sharon” J. W. v. Goethe
• “The Dance” by Friedrich Schiller with musical accompaniment by Max Schuurman

Dear attendees!

Allow me to say a few words about our eurythmy and eurythmic performance. This will seem all the more justified since you are being asked to turn your attention not to something complete and perfect in itself, but to an artistic endeavor with which, in the opinion of those who carry it out, a goal has not yet been reached, but for the time being only something is willed, perhaps I could even say: with which an attempt is being made to will something. It is obvious that what we are presenting here as a eurythmic art is drawn in parallel with many similar contemporary endeavors, endeavors in the arts of movement, the arts of dance, and the like. And it must be said that much is being achieved in these fields at present, and to an extraordinary degree of perfection. But if you were to think that we want to compete with these neighboring arts, then you would misunderstand our intentions. That is not the point; the point is to develop a special new art form, which, however, as far as we have come with it, is only at its beginning.

The basis of this endeavor is basically in the same direction as our other endeavors: the continuation of what is inherent in Goethe's conception of the world and of art. And here, in particular, it is a very specific area in which we are trying to develop Goethe's conception of art in a way that can correspond to more modern artistic views and feelings.

Goethe, who perhaps more than any other has grasped the essence of art, once said, “Art is a revelation of certain laws of nature that could never be revealed without its activity”. Goethe was able to see in artistic design and creation something akin to a revelation of secret natural laws, of such natural laws that cannot be revealed by the sober, dry, scientific mind, because it is precisely this mind that, through its comprehensive view of the world, has received a deep insight precisely into nature and its mysterious entities. I would just like to say that one receives a small glimpse of this vast, comprehensive Goethean view of nature when one allows Goethe's significant treatise, which is indeed characteristic of a view of nature, to take effect on one , the treatise on the becoming and weaving of the plant organism, from which Goethe's view and thoughts on the becoming and weaving of the living in the world in general then radiate.

I can only briefly mention how Goethe sees that each individual part of a living being is, in a mysterious way, like an expression of the whole living being and, in turn, like an expression of every other individual part. Goethe observes the developing plant, leaf by leaf, up to the flower and the fruit. He is of the opinion that what we admire as a colored petal is only a transformation of the green leaf, and that even the finer flower organs, which in their external shape are very unlike an ordinary green leaf, are only a transformation of this green leaf. There is metamorphosis everywhere in nature. The formation of living things is based on the fact that metamorphosis is everywhere. And so every single link, every single leaf, is an expression of the whole. Goethe sees a whole plant in the individual leaf, in the individual petal, in the individual stamen. But this can be applied to all living things, especially to the archetype of all living things, to human form and to human movement, to human living activity itself. And that is precisely what should be expressed in this eurythmic art. The mysterious laws of nature of the human being itself should be expressed.

That is the idea. But the idea is not the main thing. The main thing is that an attempt has been made to really dissolve and implement this Goethean view of the weaving and essence of the organism in artistic perception. Man speaks by revealing the language of sounds and tones to his surroundings; he speaks with a single member of his organic form, with the larynx; he sings with the larynx and with the neighboring organs. Just as the individual leaf is an entire plant, so, in a sense, what the larynx and neighboring organs are, the foundations of human speech, is the whole human being. And again, the whole human being can only be understood as a complicated metamorphosis of the larynx.

This attempt has been made to bring the whole human being into such movement and into such positions that, as through the larynx, speaking and singing is done in sound, so in the visible through the whole human being, speaking and musicality is brought to bear. This does not mean that the movements that are made should be interpreted in some kind of crazy way; but only that, as in the case of the musical art itself, where everything proceeds according to law and yet everything is felt elementarily - the movements of the eurythmic art, like musical harmony and melody themselves, are felt in their inner lawfulness, without going back to the just mentioned, then the artistic of this eurythmic will arise.

What lives in the human soul, as it is otherwise expressed through the organ of human speech, through the larynx, should be expressed through the whole human being, through his movements, through his postures. The whole human being should, so to speak, develop before the spectator as a larynx.

But human speech contains not only that which is otherwise expressed in sounds and sequences of sounds, but the whole of the human soul is expressed - feeling, inner warmth, sensation, mood and so on, and so on. That is why our eurythmic art also strives to visibly represent everything that comes to expression through the medium of language.

We are therefore dealing with a movement art in general, with movements of the individual human being, but also with movements of groups, with movements of groups that have to express moods, sensations, warmth that glow and permeate language. Everything that, so to speak, expresses the proximity of the larynx is in turn expressed through our group positions and movements. Rhyme and rhythm, by which the poetic and artistic in language is achieved, are sought to be achieved through these movements of groups, through the mutual positions of the dancing people and so on.

What characterizes this eurythmic art, esteemed attendees, and distinguishes it from all neighboring arts, is that it does not seek the momentary gesture, the momentary pantomime. Just as in music, in its inner laws, nothing is sought as an instantaneous expression - then it would be musical painting - so in the eurythmic art, conscious mimicry is not striven for through instantaneous gesture. It is not that which lives momentarily in the soul that is expressed through a momentary gesture or a momentary pantomime, as it is in neighboring arts. Rather, it is the case that the whole is based on an inner lawfulness, just as in music itself. So that, when two eurythmists present the same thing, their differences will be no greater than when two pianists play the same Beethoven sonata according to their own subjective understanding. The difference will not be greater. Everything is objectified. And where you will still see that a pantomime, a mimic, that gestures of the moment occur, there the matter is still imperfect, there we will still have to overcome many a thing – precisely in order to do justice to our views.

This way, one can actually hear the spoken word or the music on the one hand, and on the other hand, this poetry, this music is translated into human [movements] and into movements of groups of people. So that what is expressed in these movements, in these positions, should have as direct an effect as the vibration of the air, the movement of the air, which also emerges as a real movement from the human larynx.

So we turn our attention to the sounds we hear and not to the movement that remains invisible. With our artistic movements, with our eurythmy, we want to see in space what people, as it were, do not see in space because they only turn their ear to how something is spoken and cannot turn any organ to what develops in the larynx as a continuation of the larynx's own movement in air vibrations, in rhythms, in harmony and so on.

This is the fundamental idea of our eurythmic art. In this, we are of course still at the beginning of our endeavors, and I ask you to take this fully into account. You will find something imperfect presented, but something that should be a beginning for further development in this direction. And if you have the kindness and goodwill to look at what can still be imperfectly presented today, in this imperfection, then your attention will certainly give us further impulses for perfecting this art, which wants to take its place among other arts.

In any case, however, we would like more and more people to feel that the forms of artistic expression have not yet been finalized. The essential nature of the style of eurythmy art will be seen particularly clearly if we go back to Goethe's healthy view, which he expresses in the words: Style is based on the deepest foundations of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as we are allowed to present this essence of things in visible and tangible forms. And it is Goethe himself who ultimately relates everything that can be represented in art to what can be perceived by the human being himself. In his beautiful book about Winckelmann, Goethe seeks to express the essence of art by saying: The whole world is reflected in man; in man the most secret laws of nature are revealed, and precisely by representing them in and through himself, he represents a summit of the essence and becoming of all things. Goethe says: Man, by rising to the summit of nature, becomes perfect in himself and in turn produces a summit himself. He tries to have within himself all the perfections that are otherwise spread out over individual things in nature; he tries to unite order and harmony within himself, in order to ultimately rise to the production of a work of art.

An attempt, but as already mentioned, an attempt that will seek its perfection, that is what we want to offer you today at the beginning. Turn your attention to this attempt, as it is just beginning. For we are convinced, dear ladies and gentlemen: in what is now still in its early stages lie the seeds of something more perfect, regardless of whether this perfection will be achieved by ourselves or whether others will continue what we have begun in this direction of art. It appears to those who are connected with this particular branch of art as a basis of the deepest conviction: Either we ourselves or others after us will find a way out of the small beginnings, out of the imperfections that can still be seen, to a branch of art that truly leads to the depths of human existence and its possibilities, and that can be placed alongside other branches of art.

What we are attempting here can be characterized in a few brief strokes as follows. We are creating a eurythmic art, and everything that is to be striven for and accomplished through this Goetheanum is rooted in the currents of Goethe's conception of the world and of art.

The aim is to develop in a particular field that which, in essence, was Goethe's view of art in all fields. This Goethean view of art, in turn, arose from Goethe's comprehensive view of nature. For Goethe, there was an intimate connection between everything that can be artistically represented and the higher truth of nature.

Therefore, one is repeatedly captivated by the impulse that permeates Goethe's entire world view, which is expressed, for example, in Goethe's words: “When nature begins to reveal its secret to someone, that person has an immediate need for its most worthy interpreter, art.” And this emerged from Goethe's powerful, great view of nature, which I would like to characterize here, of course, only with a few strokes.

If you read Goethe's wonderful essay on “The Metamorphosis of Plants”, you will be given Goethe's idea that metamorphosis prevails in all living things. Goethe sees in the colored petal only a transformation of the green leaf; and even in those organs - [for example] in the flower - that do not resemble the green leaf at all in their external form, he sees transformed leaves.

Of course, abstract natural science can confirm some of what Goethe said in 1790 about “The Metamorphosis of Plants” based on intuition, and disprove some of it. But for him, this arose from a different great idea: the rule of metamorphosis, of transformation, in all living things, right up to the human being. For Goethe, every single part of a living organ was somehow the whole organism, and in turn the whole organism was the effect of what essentially lived in the individual organ. Every leaf was a whole plant, is a whole plant for Goethe.

And today, when so many decades have passed since Goethe's time, we can develop this further, applying the Goethean worldview not only to the finished form but also to the activity of the organism. A partial activity of the organism represents what the whole organism basically does. And in turn, the whole organism is predisposed to be able to express that which is expressed in a partial activity, in the activity of a single organ. This can now be tried out on the human larynx, on the organ of speech and song, with the neighboring organs. We can recognize through intuition the mysterious movement patterns hidden in the human larynx by paying attention to what the larynx produces.

When we hear spoken language, we hear the connection between sounds, the musical aspect; we are not attentive to the mysterious movement patterns that the larynx carries out and which are then transferred into the movements of the air. But what a partial organ performs in terms of movement can really be extended by intuiting it, not by narrowing Goethe's view of nature in the abstract, not by developing it scientifically, but by feeling it artistically, what is predisposed in the larynx can be extended in such a way that it becomes movement of the whole human being. And that is what our eurythmy strives for: the whole human being should visibly express through his movements what is otherwise present in the larynx in the way of movement tendencies.

And with that, the basis seems to have been created for a movement art that can be felt and understood in the same way as what comes to light in sound and tone when speaking, when speaking in an artistically shaped way, in rhyme, in verse, when speaking in a musically shaped way, when singing.

But what a person speaks, what a poet works with, is imbued with human feeling, with the mood of the soul. In a certain way, the whole soul lives in it. What glows through as warmth of feeling, illuminates as mood of the soul what is spoken and sung, and we are now trying to express this in the mutual positions and movements of our groups, so that what is to be seen on stage is language that has become visible.

Of course, some may object to the idea of making language visible; but anyone who is able to truly comprehend the innermost essence of all natural and artistic activity has a sense that what has been developed in a certain area by nature itself can now be artistically utilized in all its aspects. And so in our eurythmy we try to create something that can be compared to the musical itself through inner conformity to law.

While neighboring arts try to express what lives subjectively in the human being through the momentary gesture, through the momentary pantomime, through facial expressions, there is nothing subjective or arbitrary in our eurythmy. We do not strive for what is currently living in the soul and needs to be expressed, but for the inner connection — as in the artful poetry of language itself, as in the musical melody and harmony — that is what we strive for. So that nothing depends on the subjectivity of what is to be presented, as when two different pianists present a Beethoven sonata in their interpretation.

Our eurythmy is an objective art; it is not a momentarily subjective creation, and thus frees itself completely from human arbitrariness. That is the essential thing. And if you should still perceive pantomime, facial expressions, gestures, that seemingly only express the soul symbolically, in some details today, then that is merely an imperfection. We have not yet achieved everything we want to achieve. The aim is an inner lawfulness that is independent of any human arbitrariness, as is the case in the musical work of art itself.

Nevertheless, everything should also be felt directly. Just as little as one needs to be a trained composer or to know musical theory in order to feel the music, one should also be able to feel in an elementary way what is expressed here in the harmonies and melodies of movement, without having first, I would say, the scholastic basis that the practitioner must know. But in this way – and I believe in the Goethean sense – a true art form is created. The whole person shows what inner possibilities of movement are present in him.

Now, Goethe is of the opinion that every 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 a tangible and visible way. And it is precisely when art elevates itself to the human being that Goethe sees the artistic perfection. He says that the human being is placed at the summit of nature and thus feels like a whole of nature, which in turn strives to bring forth a summit, in that the human being invokes choice, order, harmony and meaning within himself and thus elevates himself to the production of the work of art.

We do not, of course, believe that we can create some kind of total work of art, which would be a complete expression of what lies in the human being, with eurythmy. But we believe that we have made a start with something that can take its place alongside the other arts as a new art form.

And so I would ask you, esteemed attendees, to be mindful of the fact that we ourselves know exactly how imperfect and initial this is. But on the other hand, we are also convinced that the beginning is being made with something that is capable of further perfection. And we will be grateful if you turn your attention to this beginning. For a prologue, which can be found in Shakespeare's works, I would like to say, with a little reworking: If you turn your attention to this beginning, it will be a source of inspiration for those working in this art form to develop it further.

Because they are convinced that either we ourselves will be able to bring what is only imperfect today to a somewhat greater perfection, or others will further develop this art form. We are convinced that it contains fruitful seeds for development. And what still leaves something to be desired is, in our opinion, only due to the fact that we have only been able to create a beginning so far.

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.