Practical Things Like Stories and Eurythmy

Grasshopper Productions will soon be presenting a Fairy Tale in eurythmy at the Toronto Waldorf School, and Jonathan Snow wrote this piece for parents in the school newsletter as a general introduction. - MM

Fairytales have been used from the dawn of mankind to convey wisdom to new generations of listeners. Raised to the status of "Volksgut" - cultural heritage of a people - by the scientific endeavours of men like the Grimm brothers during the Romantic era, they became used to convey moral lessons to children. A century later, modern psychology revisited tales and myths, using them as maps of the forces at work in the human psyche, most of which remain largely hidden from our waking consciousness. C.G. Jung argued that each of the different characters in these stories represented archetypal forces active within the soul of a single person. Rudolf Steiner indicated that the characters in fairytales may be direct representations of invisible but very concrete forces, which we can call spiritual beings, which are represented using imagery from the world perceptible to our everyday consciousness. In any case, we have slowly rediscovered that fairytales are not mere childish trifles, but are vehicles of great wisdom from which we as adults can profit.

Eurythmy, which strives to make visible that which normally remains hidden, is a medium of choice for conveying the many sheaths of a fairytale to an audience. It easily frees itself from representational realism, where clothing, mannerisms, etc. of a specific culture are reproduced as accurately and authentically as possible. Rather, eurythmy gives itself the task of conveying an accurate picture of the deeper truths embedded as seeds in works of art. To do this, it uses different qualities of movement and colours (in costumes and lighting), to show visual archetypes and create various moods, and thus speaks a language that reaches us beyond our intellectual comprehension.

The spoken word as conveyer of wisdom is not limited to a role of preserving past tradition. Poetic endeavours in all times seek to capture the essence of our world - visible and invisible - as the poet in all his modernity perceives it. Again, in poetry as in fairytales, we have a language that addresses far more than the human intellect. That which a text wishes to convey may be amplified by eurythmy using the same means as for fairytales. And, whereas fairytales offer us a plot to hold on to, poetry may leave us with no such anchor. So for those of us who have difficulty finding the entrance into modern lyrical art, eurythmy can serve as a kind of subtitles for the messages between the lines.

More on Renate Krause

On October 6, Renate Krause decided that she had recovered sufficiently from an operation to resume her eurythmy work, and she opened our study group with a stimulating group eurythmy exercise. We were putting away chairs at the end of the meeting, when somehow she fell in a corner, with the result that her arm was broken. She has been in considerable pain, but she has recovered sufficiently to return home, and she is able to drive when she needs to. It's quite incredible how undaunted she seems by these difficult trials...

Feeling Our Feet

Here is an excerpt from an interesting review of a book about barefoot running in The Toronto Star. The author has done extensive research and learned that athletic shoes are doing more harm than good, and says we should be paying much more attention to natural foot movements...

"LEONARDO DA VINCI observed that the human foot is 'a work of art and a masterpiece of engineering.'

Each foot/ankle combo contains 26 bones (both sides comprise one-quarter of the bones of the human body), 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments. Thousands of nerve endings also make our feet extremely sensitive – one of the reasons torturers throughout history have whipped the soles of prisoners' feet.

It's amazing that our feet can sustain the constant shock of walking, let alone running. Especially since, according to some scientists, we've been wrecking our feet. Our shoes, whether stilettos or cushioned, spring-loaded, gel-padded, air-bubble-infused sneakers, make us walk in a way that is not natural for our feet, studies say.

Watch a baby take those first steps. There's a natural way we all walk, with short strides, landing softly on our heels or the balls of our feet before our toes spring us forward.
Now walk in your best running shoes. You'll likely take longer strides and, due to the padding in the heels, strike down harder, unable to roll to the side because of the thick sole and inflexibility of the shoe. This rigid base also stops your toes from springing you forward, so your legs have to work harder.

We're also not feeling what's really going on with our feet. High shock-absorbing footwear prohibits our sensitive plantar surface from sending pain and pressure impulses that would naturally allow us to alter our gait to reduce stress.

"There's a benefit to barefoot running, I really think there is, no doubt," says Dr. Jack Taunton, the chief medical officer for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Taunton, director of the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre at the University of British Columbia, has conducted studies on injured runners and basketball players that show with less support, the body heals faster. The foot and ankle are forced to build muscles that support the ailing area.
It's just the old adage, he says: 'If you don't use it, you lose it.'"

Introducing Pascal Jouneau

Bonjour,
Je suis Pascal JOUNEAU, (formé à l'école de La haye en Hollande/ PaysBas) eurythmiste au Québec dans les deux écoles:
* Les enfants de la terre à Waterville près de Scherbrooke et
* L'Eau Vive à Victoriaville.

Je suis aussi eurythmiste Thérapeute formé en Suisse.

"I am Pascal Jouneau. I did my training in The Hague, and am now working in Quebec. I am teaching eurythmy in two schools: Les enfants de la terre in Waterville near Sherbrooke
and L'Eau Vive in Victoriaville. I am also a therapeutic eurythmist trained in Switzerland."

Eurythmy Association UK

Stories and information about eurythmy in the United Kingdom are available at their website. You can also find a copy of their current newsletter on the site.

Youth Movement

Marc-Antoine Brodeur is studying eurythmy in UK, and hopes to return to Canada when he's finished. Here is his report about a recent practicum...MM

Teenagers and Dissonance in Oslo

I arrived in Oslo, Norway just after a few days of deep snowfall and so the city was beautifully white and rounded. The land of alliteration met me with icy clearness. I was coming from Botton Village in green England, in my third year of eurythmy training, and about to plunge into ten days of teaching practice. My mentor Tatiana Magnussen, a Russian pianist turned eurythmist, was most inspiring to watch with the children. She had a solid strength about her and warm eyes that met them all with joy. The different moods she was able to create from kindergarten to the tenth grade demonstrated not only her understanding of the needs of the growing child but also her capacity to translate these soul and body needs through music and poetry into living expression. The children and teenagers loved it. She was also very respected by her colleagues.

Teenagers and dissonance

During my time in Asker Steiner school, Tatiana asked me to introduce the tenth grade to the worlds of major, minor and dissonance. She suggested I use 'The Death of Ase' from the Peer Gynt Suite (op.46) by Edward Grieg. This slow piece in 4/4, an Andante doloroso, proved to be very effective as it gave the necessary breadth of time to live into the new movements but also delivered all the intensity you would want for a teenage soul! The questions I asked myself included: how do I get the students to move what they are feeling at this time of their lives? How can I do this in a way that is fun and yet so intense that they forget about being cool but just dive in?

Just the Boys

I had a first class just with the young men-in-becoming. After a full eurythmy body and soul warm up, I had them in two lines, far apart, facing each other. They were to listen to the gentle major or minor rolling arpeggio and move towards each other with the appropriate gesture; they had to listen as they did not know what mood would come. Then, as a louder dissonant chord sounded, they were to plunge jumping down (with their legs) through the other line (who were doing the same in the opposite direction) while stretching and tensing with their arms forward and backward and all the while keeping very vertical and awake, eyes forward. Then, once having pierced through, they would slow into another major or minor in calmness, then breathe out, listening inside to what had just happened. Sometimes they laughed hard and other times there was a brief stillness that ensued; difficult to describe. They seemed to have had great joy in this and other variations.

Teenage Girls and Boys

The next day I did the same exercise with the whole class. The boys were quite well behaved but were so sure of their movements that they made it a bit too rough for the girls to be able to experience it with as much inwardness. Having known this might happen, I would have asked for a separate class with the girls so that they might have the chance to also have the tender experiences of minor and tearing dissonance.

Forms without Forms

When we came to 'The Death of Ase' I felt that what worked best (having been inspired by three weeks work with Dorothea Mier), was to have the students listen to the music and then move it in two groups guided by my hands with forms previously worked on with Tatiana. This we did many times, then slowly bringing in the gestures. Only later, if necessary, were the forms illustrated on the board. This guiding with the hands, until they knew the form without me, I think left them more free to experience the movement in space (getting out of their heads) and especially to be sensitive to moving together with their compatriots. It was touching to see them, through this whole process, come to a real experience of the music and to be able to express it with their bodies, right to the fingertips and toes.

A Teacher

It is with gratitude that I was able to observe Tatiana in her humble, devoted and energetic work. She was able to bring children and teenagers to real experiences of the essential nature of music and poetry. She was a solid rudder for the teens' tempestuous souls and a revealer of the joys of incarnation for the younger ones. Her inner calm and outer versatility met them in their growing needs and this they responded to with joy. So after a rewarding time in Oslo I bade them a warm farewell, put away my woolly mittens and returned to lush fields of England.

MONEY FOR PERFORMING

Who said there is no money for eurythmy???

The Waldorf Education Fund (WEF) grants money every year to support eurythmy performances. Why not put some of this money to work in Canada? For details and application information, see the posting on the Association website. Deadline for submissions is October 15, 2009.