Learning to Talk about Eurythmy

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.

This text is an excerpt from an article published in the (online exclusive) Goetheanum Weekly. You can read the full article on the website. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get to know the Goetheanum Weekly for 1 CHF./€.

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.