EURYTHMY: ITS BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Rudolf Steiner
EURYTHMY:
ITS BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Here are first-hand accounts by the early eurythmists of the birth of this totally new social art with Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). The first question connects the venture with John the evangelist, discoverer of the "Lost Word". The practical stages, with the artistic material, is here chronicled, with reports from the first public performance onwards. Steiner stimulates the first eurythmists to make their own discoveries, to perceive and fashion in movement the creative "inner Voice". On this search the artistic principles are established for further unfolding and elaboration, to reveal and foster human creativity in many poetic and musical contexts.
Links also emerge to temple-dances that accompanied early initiations. The impulse to dance is here rediscovered as inherent in the "Lost Word", or the primordial root language still available in "genetic etymology" (Novalis) - the sounds of speech used in all languages. Music eurythmy, too, did not start from dancing, but from the archetypal structure of the musical system. Consequently, we can directly witness how an eloquent performing art may truly develop where technique and inspiration meet.