Eurythmy is one of the major new creations from the heart of anthroposophy. It’s more well known today but is still finding its way into a dialogue with itself and the world. For four years now, “Eurythmy in Conversation” [Eurythmie im Gespräch] has been a regular event at the Goetheanum, initiated by the Goetheanum Eurythmy Ensemble. In this interview, Christine Prestifilippo, Nicolas Prestifilippo, and Marianne Dill talk about their motivations for the series.
Franka Henn: Already in the title of your series, “Eurythmy in Conversation,” there seems to be a statement. What do you think it’s saying?
Nicolas Prestifilippo I actually think about that quite often. “Eurythmy” is a big word. Who or what is it? Is eurythmy taking part in a conversation? This is why we wanted the dialog to focus on stage eurythmy while remaining flexible. We want to offer the audience and participants a place to discuss certain themes without getting stuck in rigid concepts, but instead allow everything to be in a process of conversation. Of course, it doesn’t always work, but that’s our intention and aim.
Marianne Dill From the very beginning, it was about creating an encounter. A conversation is itself an encounter. We wanted the Goetheanum Eurythmy Ensemble and people in the community to meet. We want to expand the “conversation” that goes on between audience and performers during a performance. So, there’s actually two sides to it: one is for eurythmists to use their words and thoughts to engage with eurythmy, and the other is the meeting with the audience.
Nico, you host most of the evenings. How do you see your role as host?
NP First, it’s important for us that we never give instructions to the guest speakers about the evening; instead, we respond to them. Gioia Falk really wanted our talk about the Mystery Dramas to be accompanied by demonstrations. Mikko Jairi wanted to bring videos. Klaus Suppan spoke about lighting and wanted to change the lighting during the conversation to give the sense of different atmospheric moods. So, we prepare the event together with our guests. But sometimes it’s difficult to create an entirely open space for discussion when we’ve already planned a number of things. Usually though, the idea of meeting each other has been more in the foreground, as Marianne said. I think the success of a conversation about eurythmy depends entirely on the people who are there, speaking together. This is how some of the most diverse facets of stage eurythmy are revealed. We try to keep the conversation lighter, and we often discuss technical aspects of eurythmy, but we also look for ways to get into a conversation that requires more refined thinking and can even invite friction or contrasting viewpoints.
MD I also see it like that. It depends entirely on the people. We learn a lot as an ensemble. With every individual who takes part in the conversation, we’re able to expand our view of what eurythmy can be. The field of stage eurythmy is much richer than anything we can produce on our own as artists today. There’s also a conversation between the past, present, and future.
Keeping Complex Requirements Together
The three of you have been working on these events as a team for quite a while. How exactly do you prepare the events?
Christine Prestifilippo We each started sharing our questions about stage eurythmy in the ensemble and began having our own discussions. We try now to continue these discussions and find topics to bring to the event. Then we find the guest speakers for each topic and plan the event with them. We have these meetings with our guests beforehand to bring our questions into focus before the evening with the audience. We could never address everything the guest speakers bring in only 45 minutes.
NP Yes, and we also invite the whole ensemble to these preliminary talks so that everything shared gets back to the whole group. It’s helpful to have these preliminary talks to provide a safe space where people can be more relaxed than they would be in front of an audience. Sometimes we’ve had talks in this series that were not open to an audience simply because some people were interested in sharing their experiences with us, but didn’t want to do so in front of a public audience. One of the main incentives for us to organize these events is that we often feel we lack certain concepts in eurythmy that would allow us to think and discuss certain questions or difficulties with each other.
So, with “Eurythmy in Conversation,” do you have three intentions: a platform for a professional discourse on stage eurythmy, a public space for art education at the Goetheanum, and a development of consciousness or a kind of think tank for eurythmy?
MD Yes, and that shows the complexity of what we’re trying to do here. It’s only gradually become clear who our audience is. So, we can now orient ourselves better than four years ago concerning our topics and questions. But it’s difficult to combine all three intentions in every evening. If it’s a professional discourse, then it’s not necessarily accessible to non-professionals, and so on. It’s often about exploring how we can talk about eurythmy to create an open conversation accessible to a wider audience.
CP So far, we’ve tried to shape each talk as openly as possible, while still making it clear in the title how specific or how broad the particular topic is. Many people come regardless of the topic because they simply want to see the guest speaker. Some come because of the person, some because of the topic, and some just because they like the fact that there’s a conversation about eurythmy.
Do you have the impression that “Eurythmy in Conversation” has initiated a new exchange between eurythmists in the wider eurythmy scene with all the different guest speakers you’ve hosted?
NP Not yet, I don’t think. I think we’d have to choose more topics that require real back-and-forth dialog. Usually, we work with the guest speaker, and the topic remains more or less focused on them and their views. We listen to what this person offers and learn their specific way of working with eurythmy.
Warmth and Cold in the Exchange
You’ve spoken of the need to develop more concepts for the study of eurythmy. It seems that, in the past, eurythmy has been more about practicing, doing, and experiencing than about understanding and comprehending. What you describe sounds like the struggle for a language. Of course, there is a language that has emerged since its beginnings and has since developed through the education of all the various eurythmists throughout the years. But a language for discussion and understanding is missing. There are a few individual people who’ve made progress in their research, but they mostly remain isolated. A common field has not yet really emerged. Why do you think this has been so difficult for the eurythmy world?
MD One aspect is probably that those who learn eurythmy are usually not those who want to approach eurythmy from a philosophical point of view. Many do have inner questions that connect them with eurythmy, and they experience eurythmy as a path that leads them to the stage, or to pedagogy or therapy. In this sense, the eurythmy path is an experiential path. There are some people who then shed a light on these experiences, who think and write about them. There are some who write books about eurythmy. But I also know people from other arts, for example brilliant musicians, who don’t necessarily think about music; I also know others who are very analytical and form many concepts about their art.
NP In other areas of anthroposophy, people have become less rigid and more open. Perhaps more than in eurythmy. But my impression is not that people don’t engage with it enough, but that many people actually do think a lot about eurythmy and what Rudolf Steiner said about it. In some ways, eurythmy suffers from too much thought. I think it’s more a question of: How do we get into a dialogue? Where do our interests bring us to come together for discussion?—This kind of interest is what ultimately constitutes a scientific discourse. I still find a lot of things are based on traditions that people want to protect. When this is the case, there’s no need for discussion. What you said earlier, Franka, about a common language for eurythmy is exciting for me. To this day, I hear practically the same words in rehearsals that I heard in my eurythmy training. It seems to me that the vocabulary for eurythmy has been too narrowly defined.
Why is that? Isn’t there usually fear behind the need to protect something?
CP I think partly people don’t want to step on each other’s toes. If they present their own ideas as valid, it may be that the other person won’t be able to go along with their insights.
But isn’t that also an anti-critical attitude? We protect ourselves out of concern that our views will be criticized or questioned. There’s nothing wrong with a professional debate—it can actually be rather fruitful!
NP I believe there’s a lot of warmth in eurythmy, and hostility creates a coldness that people are afraid of. That stops the conversation. But we do need criticism. It prevents us from going to sleep in our beliefs. Criticism helps things develop. But unconsciously we may just want to stay with our warm feelings. We can see this warmth in families, too, and we’re certainly less open to criticism within our families because we love each other. How do we get to a mature level of being able to receive helpful criticism that sheds light on something—even allowing for the possibility that this criticism may not always be correct?
You mentioned the need for warmth. When we withdraw into ourselves and don’t engage in conversation, when we don’t engage in relationships, this also creates a coldness because we connect less with others. Can perhaps fear be, instead, a kind of firm stimulus that doesn’t have to always be hostile but could have a loosening effect? Friction does generate heat.
NP Yes, but we have to consider that in the last hundred years there have been a lot of very strong debates about eurythmy. Some have led to painful wounds that still remain. And many people would prefer not to go back to this. For me, it’s all about how. How can I express and hear criticism in such a way that it facilitates a conversation?
Speaking Eye-to-Eye
Having initiated this event and now running it for four years, what ambitions do you have for its further development?
NP One important reason for these events is to make the work of the stage ensemble visible and to show the depth of the work that goes into our programs. For example, we had a very successful conversation about our program “An die Erde” [To the Earth] with Ueli Hurter from the Agriculture Section, whom we collaborated with on the production. His point of view as a farmer, the way he responded to our questions about the program led to a completely different way of talking about eurythmy. To be able to report about the underlying content of our programs and how it weaves throughout our work on the stage and in the other sections is an important goal for me.
MD My main question is: How can we sharpen our thinking even more? How can we find the right questions? And how can we engage the public in conversation in such a way that it’s not just passive viewing of a conversation on the podium but that the audience really becomes part of the conversation? I’m hoping this will allow for more inspiration to come from the outside.
CP An important new step now would be to strengthen the space for discussion within our ensemble. We could develop and sift out more topics in our internal discussions and allow what is coming as “fertilization from outside” to pour into the whole ensemble, into our daily work.
NP I also have the wish to write down what we gain in the conversations in some kind of suitable form. The conversations recorded for Goetheanum TV have already created something lasting. But writings would help us continue to work on certain essential aspects that come up in conversation and would also help us learn more how to thoughtfully invite controversy into this warm space we’ve now created.
It seems to me that you’ve gathered quite a lot so far, a treasure trove of knowledge from very experienced people who are active in the scene. The “Conversations” have often been public interviews where the main guest shared their knowledge. But a conversation taking place between people in the moment needs a certain quality. Maybe this is a question of speaking eye-to-eye. You talk a lot with eurythmists who have been practicing and researching eurythmy for a very long time. Do you feel you can speak on the same level with them in the conversation?
CP Each time is totally different; each encounter is individual. In general, I believe, we’re not on the same level, in that sense. But we enter into the conversation with great interest in what has been researched and are eager to learn from it.
MD We are often talking with people who have been working decades longer than we have. So, when it comes to being on the same level, it’s more about being equals as one human being to another. To really engage in a more controversial debate, we may need another format, for example, a research colloquium, where we research specific questions more intensively with other people. This could then level the playing field for those events. As long as I haven’t achieved that level, all I can do for now is participate and have interest.
I certainly understand that people want to learn, and for me it’s not about getting into conflicts or battles of opinion or not accepting the common wealth of knowledge. I’m asking because it seems to me that there are two very interesting polarities in the history of eurythmy. On the one hand, people who had “no knowledge at all” about eurythmy (because it hadn’t yet been given in this form) asked questions and sought answers; so eurythmy was very much built on this kind of initiative. The other principle is that there is an authority that one receives eurythmy from, who decides what’s right or wrong. The second principle puts the “learners” in a lower position. I’m not saying this to pass judgement here. But I wonder if this has perpetuated a certain experience for eurythmists: that one never feels good enough, never knows enough to enter into a real conversation, to have the courage to authentically take part in a dialogue? To be a part of a dialogue is essential for any stage art.
NP Yes, I believe that today, we still experience how the anthroposophical movement was built very strongly on authority in its beginnings. Many of the first eurythmists were young and they had to refer to an authority. This still lives unconsciously in the eurythmy scene. In our “Conversations,” I usually experience that we’re meeting each other on the same level. However, we often have people as guests who prefer simply to share their experience with others rather than to enter into a critical debate. We have to meet the human being as they are. For me, when we start a conversation it’s important that we validate each other. So, we try to understand what our conversation partner wants, how open he or she is to which questions, or where this person is not comfortable and doesn’t wish to speak. We adapt to them. It’s important for us to sense this and truly engage with the person we’ve invited.
Upcoming “Eurythmy in Conversation”:
- March 20: Research between Imposition and Liberation—with Martina Maria Sam and Stefan Hasler.
- May 22: Male Eurythmists and Dramatic Eurythmy—a book presentation with Angelika Feind.
- June 19: Heavenly Journey and Earthly Confusion—with Wolfgang Held.
More Goetheanum Stage and conversations on Goetheanum TV, including the following guests: Mirela Faldey, Christian Peter, Benedikt Zweifel, Tania Mierau, Don Vollen, Mikko Jairi, and Stefan Hasler.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Title Image Event “Eurythmy in Conversation” with Benedikt Zweifel. Photo: Private.
