What is Eurythmy?
The unique art of eurythmy is speech and music made visible through movement. Movement ‘ensouled’ in arm and whole body gestures that can be learned by children and adults alike. It is an artistic means of expressing letters, sounds and colors. Rudolf Steiner described such sounds as archetypal, and therefore living, inside every human being. “It is the formative / creative principle underlying “our thinking, feeling and willing. Young children in the Kindergarten, for example, are natural beings of movement who are so connected to the will. Eurythmy gestures moved in a morning circle form the will healthily, by providing “true and living pictures” they can imitate. In the grades, the gestures are learned as deeper expressions of polarities in feeling, and so form their feeling healthily, by exploring and recognizing them. In the higher grades the student learns to move in different directions and to form moving geometrical shapes in space. Exercises with copper rods help the body and mind cooperate and bring about greater strength and accuracy. The student learns to move more consciously — the sounds of the words in poetry and the tones in musical intervals determine the movements with which he models the surrounding space. It is also a ‘social’ and ‘harmonizing’ activity that engages the entire being of each member to participate and contribute to the ‘whole’. Eurythmy may also be applied as massage or for curative purposes.