About Eurythmy
The word eurythmy has Greek roots and means beautiful or harmonious rhythm. The term was used by ancient Greek and Roman architects to refer to the harmonious proportions of a design or building. The English word eurythmy was used from the 17th to 19th century to refer not only to harmonious architectural proportions, but also to “rhythmical order or movement” and “a graceful proportion and carriage of the body”.
In 1912, Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), philosopher, scientist and initiate, developed this new art of movement, eurythmy. He perceived how speech and music translate into movement and how this affects the human being. Every vowel and every consonant are expressed with a specific gesture, and every tone of music and intervals are expressed with specific movements.
Steiner wanted to introduce a new impulse to dance,, with an emphasis on personal expression. Steiner sought to reconnect dance to its origins as a sacred art form inspired by the Muses. Steiner introduced eurythmy as a creation of an organic movement art suited to the inner and outer needs and character of modern humanity.
Eurythmy brings out through movement the inner feelings of the music and poems and becomes an art of “visible speech” and “visible music”.
Every human being at any age benefits from Eurythmy.
With Eurythmy, we can prevent and counteract the experience of stress and tension of our modern life style as it opens and expands our breathing and hearts. Eurythmy has an enlivening effect on the life forces (Chi), it harmonizes the body, soul and spirit while connecting us with nature, our fellow human beings and the space around us as we move together to recitings of poetry, live music, and different rhythms.
Eurythmy classes are fun, serious, humorous and enlivening all at the same time. They allow people to learn how to move together to simple as well given or self made complex forms. This interacting group movement teaches us to acknowledge and respect the other while developing a high sense of flowing movement, coordination, and concentration, all with the aid of (mostly) classical music and poetry.
Eurythmy as Visible Speech
As a movement art, Eurythmy is unique in that it accompanies speech and music. Eurythmy seeks to make speech visible through gestures that are primarily made with the arms and hands – though also with the feet and entire body. As the Eurythmist moves to choreography through space, they express the specific sounds of speech that are being spoken for a verse or a story.
To explain further, the movements in ballet, for example, and other forms of dance are the creations of individual artists. According to Steiner, the eurythmic gestures for the vowel and consonant sounds are not artistically arbitrary or subjective but inherent in nature. Further, eurythmy gestures reflect the way the larynx moves when shaping the current of breath so that they produce one or another sound. There are remarkable stop-action photos that show the larynx doing exactly this. Eurythmy, through movements made by the eurythmist, shows the key expressive sounds of a verse or story. This is done in an artistic fashion, so that the beat, meter, stresses, and pauses are also made visible. The outcome is a flowing movement that captures the audience attention
Eurythmy as Visible Music
In modern dance, a choreographer creates movements to accompany a piece of music, after which the dancer seeks to portray their own response to an interpretation of the music.
Tone eurythmy, which is eurythmy performed to music, endeavors to express the music through specific bodily gestures and movements. These gestures correspond to all the elements of music — notes, tones length, interval, key signatures, and so on — in the way that piano keys represent specific notes and chords but gain individual expression through the skill and artistry of the pianist. Eurythmy, then, is a more objective expression of music. It makes the elements of the music visible, according to certain fixed principles. Particular movements of the arms and hands show the pitch, the intervals between the notes, major and minor modes, and individual chords and notes.
The meandering melody and its stresses are expressed in the choreography. The feet can emphasize the staccato notes or other aspects of the rhythm. The Eurythmist’s body is the instrument. Individual Eurythmists will present the same piece in different ways, but each will aim to manifest the intrinsic elements of the music, bringing out their soul experience. Something very interesting in Eurythmy, which is better understood as one practices more, is that we do not move in time, but, in a way, we move outside of time. A simple, but not a complete way to explain it, is for example, that we do not present a gesture of a specific note but rather show that we strive to reach it or that we show the movement between the note, what is called an interval, which is not really heard but more being felt. This creates a movement which is seen as not in time and so very flowing which helps to bring the audience into your movement creating a unique experience for both performer and spectator.
Eurythmy is performed and taught worldwide by professional eurythmists who have completed a four or five-year full-time program at one of over twenty schools.
Eurythmy, as said above, is suitable for all ages – please see in the main menu how our programs meet each age group needs.