Eurythmy with mask

Sabine Deimann found that wearing a mask for kindergarten eurythmy does not have to be restrictive as long as the atmosphere around can ‘speak’.

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As soon as the wearing of masks was made compulsory, I tried to imagine what this would mean for doing eurythmy with young children. The answer seemed obvious: unthinkable! How could they perceive my lips and articulation, the non-verbal communication conveyed through my facial expressions? How was I to establish my usual relationship with them? How would I reach their perceptiveness of others, their sense of ‘I’, so that I would be able to inspire their imitative forces?

Resonance was possible

Unlike in Waldorf kindergartens, the wearing of a mask was mandatory in the catholic daycare centre for children. The head of centre agreed that a Perspex mask would be sufficient. This meant that the children could see me and I could breathe relatively freely. During the eurythmy, I noticed no restrictions – we were all able to forget about the ‘thing’ in my face.

Then, when the second wave seemed imminent at the end of October, it emerged that these ‘visors’ did not provide sufficient protection. The daycare centres remained open but the burden on everyone involved increased. I spontaneously decided to wear a slight, light-blue fabric mask for my next eurythmy lesson. Through this mask the contours of my face were still visible and I could also breathe quite well.

And the miracle happened: the children did not seem confused nor was their natural impulse to move with me diminished in any way – neither in the two inclusive groups nor in the group of two- to four-year olds. From beginning to end there was always a noticeable resonance in the way the children were moving with the story. They also behaved as usual, depending on their individual personality.

Perceiving the atmosphere

I had noticed before that, as a result of wearing masks, something had changed in my interaction with others. Even if the masks sometimes seem to have a disguising effect, so that one cannot recognize each other, this is not the case when one has direct contact with someone, as for instance at the checkout in the supermarket. I seem to notice that there is more non-verbal communication – with enhanced expressiveness around the eyes. When I walked into the kindergartens, wearing a mask, and met individual children, I deliberately emphasized my body language in the way I turned towards them. Again, I realized how quickly the children had become used to adults wearing this ‘thing’ in their face. This experience showed me that my face and my facial expressions when speaking were less important for the children in this context. In eurythmy it is after all the whole body language that is essential! As ‘visible speech’, the movement is anyway not limited to my limbs and body, but expands into the air that surrounds me, causing it to move with me. Children have a kind of overall perception of this atmosphere. The face mask was therefore indeed not a problem.

I assume that such a natural connection would not have been so easily possible if the children had not been familiar with me or with eurythmy. The basic condition for this positive experience was certainly the relationship I had built with them.

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