Eurythmy as Speech Made Visible

15 lectures, Dornach, June 24 – July 12, 1924 (CW 279)

With these fundamental lectures on speech eurythmy—given just months after his course “Eurythmy as Visible Singing”—Rudolf Steiner completed the foundations of the new art of movement. In connecting to the centuries-old esoteric and exoteric Western traditions of “the Word”—the creative power in the sounds of the divine-human alphabet—he gave it concrete form and expression in the performing arts, in education, and for therapy. Although aimed primarily at the professional concerns of eurythmists who perform, teach, or work as therapists, the lectures offer a wealth of suggestions and insights to anyone interested in the arts.

For this new edition—freshly translated by Matthew Barton and introduced by Coralee Frederickson—the original shorthand transcripts have been compared exhaustively with typed records and the notes of course participants. The notes included numerous sketches of movements, gestures, and choreographies, many of which have been reproduced here to complement the text.

Also featured is an appendix comprising facsimiles and transcripts of Rudolf Steiner’s preparatory notes, programs of the eurythmy performances given during the course, and accounts by Steiner published in the Anthroposophical Society newsletter.

Finally, this new translation also includes recollections by course participants, supplemental sketches of eurythmy forms and movements, Marie Steiner’s original foreword, and thirty pages of color plates, featuring blackboard drawings and eurythmy forms.

Eurythmy as Speech Made Visible is a translation from German of Eurythmie als sichtbare Sprache: Laut-Eurythmie-Kurs, Rudolf Steiner Verlag; revised and expanded edition, 2014 (GA 279).