Paul Heilmann

Paul Heilmann was born in Basel (CH) on 12 October 1935. His father was a goldsmith and his mother a stenographer. Paul was five years old when his father died. At the age of thirteen he started piano lessons and from 1950 to 1953 he had lessons in drawing and painting and learned to play the flute; he deepened his piano skills by taking lessons from the composer André Delapierre.

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Defining encounters

At the age of 18 he made the acquaintance of Marcel Altmeyer, a student of Marie Steiner’s, who had developed artistic speech for the French language. Altmeyer suggested to Paul Heilmann that he could help him with his art business. And so it came that he transported pictures (even by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse) from Basel to Paris (FR), where he lived for two years. Marcel Altmeyer also awakened in him an interest in literature, poetry and the theatre.

During a walk, the painter Annie Heuser and the painter and eurythmist Elena Zuccoli invited him to sign up for their eurythmy school which was about to open the following day. At the time he was not quite 22 years old. On the next morning he committed himself to eurythmy – a commitment that would last for the rest of his life.

Throughout his training he studied anthroposophy in addition to practising eurythmy. He lived in the same house as Elena Zuccoli, who would give him a daily spontaneous progress report over a cup of tea. In the holidays he would accompany her on her many travels to Greece, Italy and France. She was one of the defining encounters in his life.

Paul Heilmann completed his training in 1960 and went on to teach at the Zuccoli School. He also completed a eurythmy therapy training under Margarete Kirchner-Bockholt, Trude Thetter and Ilse Knauer and he was a member of the Eurythmy Stage Ensemble at the Goetheanum.

In 1965 Paul Heilmann met Bernadette Duvann, a French painter and student of Elena Zuccoli. In 1968 Paul and Bernadette married and moved to Saint-Prex (CH) to teach eurythmy at Perceval.

French eurythmy

Together with Simone Rihouët Coroze, Paul Heilmann supported the foundation of a French eurythmy training, and in 1974, thanks to Leonardo Fulgosi, the first eurythmy school in the French language was founded in St-Prex (CH). It was recognized by the Section for the Performing Arts at the Goetheanum.

To his last breath Paul Heilmann worked to keep the flame of French eurythmy alive. His radiant smile, elegance of movement and the special timbre of his voice will live on in our memories.

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