Tag: Rudolf Steiner

Intercultural Festival, London, July 2024

Intercultural Festival, London, July 2024

Posted on by Eurythmyuk

By Thomas Stott

While the world seemed to be focussed on the football Euros, Silverstone, Wimbledon, and the Tour de France, Steiner House in London was abuzz with a different kind of excitement as an Intercultural Eurythmy Festival took place. For two days, artists and participants from all corners of the world came together to celebrate and explore a rich tapestry of cultures. The festival hosted the students from Eurythmy India and Peredur Eurythmy, as well as the stage group from Eurythmy West Midlands. Together, a dynamic environment was created, filled with diverse performances and engaging activities. As part of the festival, workshops offered the chance to taste different cultures – exploring the Mandarin language, the sound of Indian music through sitar and tabla, the tree of life in music eurythmy, and comparing traditional dance, chanting and yoga to eurythmy.

One of the festival’s most discussed performances was India’s ‘Love, and Be Silent – Scenes from Shakespeare’s King Lear’ which marked a first step of building a eurythmy training in India. The students came from Nepal, Malaysia, China, and of course India, each speaking a different native tongue. The teachers tried to blend speech, drama, and eurythmy with a visible joy in performing a moving choreography.

Shakespeare’s works wove throughout the festival’s programmes, providing a common thread as English was the shared language. Fitting to the shared topic, Puck made his appearance in Peredur Eurythmy’s evening programme ‘The Way Leads On’. The performance of the fairytale ‘The Golden Ball’ marked their end of term, which was full of exciting performances in the UK, in Germany at the Forum Eurythmie Festival, and finally in Steiner House, London, after the graduating student had performed in this year’s festival for new graduates in Dornach.

Photos from the Eurythmy West Midlands Performance. All photos by Saraphir Legind.

Between touring, Eurythmy West Midlands developed their summer production, ‘Shakespeare’s Fool’, in which the fool and some clowns from chosen works of Shakespeare took centre stage, inviting reflections on these roles with their own wisdom. This collage we were able to share at the festival in London. The helplessness of infatuated lovers was seen next to King Lear’s struggle for self-knowledge in the storm; the challenging vision of disillusioned Hamlet stood next to the monologue by the simpleton Lance, with his ridiculous enactment of a family parting, trying to teach his dog to show human emotions – portrayed by a eurythmist. Lear’s fool sang his famous ditty about making a fortune of one’s ‘little wit’; Launcelot Gobbo and Autolycus sang their songs of life, suggesting that all life is ‘just’ a play. Claude Debussy’s ‘quirky’ Cello and Piano Sonata made a challenging first impression on some of us, but after working a full year on all three movements, we aimed to show the joy of life in this music. We were grateful for the joyful response to this programme.

Photos from the Eurythmy West Midlands Performance. All photos by Saraphir Legind.

As the Intercultural Eurythmy Festival unfolded, Steiner House seemed to come alive. Many people were seen attending the performances, and as many joyful faces afterwards, touched by what they witnessed. The rain might have forced everyone indoors, but it only added to the intimacy and comradery. The atmosphere was electric; participants mingled, shared stories, the workshops were filled with eager participants, and the performances were met with enthusiastic applause.

Special thanks go out to Adrian Locher and Chrystal Hayn for organising this festival, that the group from India could join us, and for supporting our work in the UK in many ways. Well done to all the performers, whose dedication brought eurythmy to life! We also extend our heartfelt gratitude to our financial supporters, including every donor and ticket holder – your contributions truly make a difference. Special thanks to the Hermes Trust and the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain for their generous support. Lastly, a huge thank you to my fellow stage-group colleagues for a special time and journey together. Your commitment makes this experience unforgettable.

Thomas Stott, eurythmist with West Midlands stage group; trained in Witten; since 2022 involved in advanced stage training and work, performed in several countries, including Russia, Georgia, Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and UK.

My journey in eurythmy and stage lighting began during my school years. As a lighting designer, I’ve honed my skills through the Eurythmie Festival in Witten, known as ‘Forum Eurythmie’, and recently started freelancing with several ensembles. My aim in setting eurythmy onto stage is to create a space of colour, to achieve glimpses of the supersensory in the sensory – an imagination that seems to be approachable, truly otherworldly. This is my ongoing research, playing with different light sources, including natural light through tinted glass windows.

Being on tour and working as a freelancer always involves picking up the work and ideas of my predecessors and finding a way. Combining my eurythmy training with technical skills has been a huge asset. The Intercultural Festival was a fantastic opportunity to bring together my passion for eurythmy and lighting, to engage with technicians and fellow designers and to connect with artists from around the world.

As I will go on to find my own artistic path, the work with Eurythmy West Midlands will come to an end in the autumn, after our upcoming tour to Asia. This will mean that I am open for questions on research, projects, performances or to start debating how our future could look like. I am excited to continue exploring and expanding the possibilities of eurythmy.

Spiritual Perspectives in Education – Breathing

Posted on by Eurythmyuk

By Chrystal Hayn

As the Soul – Spirit and Physical – Life aspects of the human being are drawn together through education, we come to the boundary between the spiritual and the physical which is the area of breathing. Taking a breath is the first thing we do in life and the last thing we do as we die. The first and last breaths have a certain focus, drama, tension and deep and momentous mystery to them: That relief as the baby gives its first cry and breathing and life now fully begin! That moment of tension and release as the last breath is taken and the soul leaves our body as we die.

Breathing connects us with our blood and circulation and via this we connect to our metabolism. This is one perspective of the process of breathing taking place within the human being. Another perspective is the connection to our nerve sense organisation. The harmony and rhythm needed for healthy breathing is not necessarily simply there. Through education and good life style the child or young person needs help to establish balanced and harmonious breathing rhythms.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that the true function of Education is to establish authentic harmonious and right breathing! He tells us that we can achieve this by bringing the Soul – Spirit and the Life – Physical into a real and living relationship with each other and of course he then builds up a complete curriculum based on this tenet of breathing.We are not talking here only of the physical activity of breathing, but as stated above; the focus on the drawing into life of the Spirit – Soul and the bringing towards these two elements, the Life – Physical as described by Steiner in the first lecture of The Foundations of Human Experience.

‘By harmonising the breathing with the nerve-sense process we draw all that is soul and spirit into the physical life of the child. To express it roughly we may say: The child cannot yet breathe in the right inner way, and education will have to consist in teaching the child to breathe rightly.’

Rudolf Steiner: The Study of Man / The Foundations of Human Experience. Lecture 1, paragraph 13.

Today in our present crisis we can surely draw much from this stand point, not just for the education of the child, but for all of our teaching, ways of living and conducting ourselves generally. I personally am endeavouring to take this question into my preparation for the young people with special needs whom I teach, into the preparation of public classes that I hold, for tutoring and teaching students in India who are doing the eurythmy training, into the work of facilitating meetings, into supervision sessions or bringing eurythmy to the working environment. Handling the balance between deadlines and outcomes and allowing for real process is all part and parcel of gaining capacity and skill at addressing the human being in specific and conscious ways.

Chrystal Hayn studied Waldorf Education in Stuttgart in the 80’s and after class teaching for 7 years trained in Eurythmy at the Ringwood Botton Eurythmy School with Chas Bamford, Monica Dorrington and Evamaria Rascher. She went on to be part of many national and international performing projects with the Botton Stage Group, Eskdale Eurythmy, Peredur Stage Group and London Eurythmy over 22 years, working mainly with Hajo Deker. She taught courses at the London College Of Eurythmy and workshops at Steiner House for several years and is part of the Foundation Stone Meditation performing work with London Eurythmy. She lives and works at The Mount Camphill Community, where she also teaches young people with special needs at the Mount Independent Specialist Residential College and is co-founder of Eurythmy India.

 

Working with Steiner’s Principles Towards Perceptive and Imaginative Teaching Approaches

Posted on by Eurythmyuk

By Chrystal Hayn

Thoughts that have inspired me that arise through reading the Foundations of Human Experience: Lectures on Education by Rudolf Steiner. Thoughts like these are timeless and allow strength and persistence for teaching the special needs young people with whom I work at the Mount Camphill Community.

In the spiritual world before birth we are helped by spirit beings in manifold ways to prepare for our birth. We arrive here on earth and meet the age of the Consciousness Soul which is also an age of deep egoism. Do we have pre-birthly intentions? How can we remember them? How can education help us to know what we are really about and what we truly intend for our lives?

working with Steiner's principles
Students from The Mount Camphill Community.

We are born and clothed with physical and life forces. As educators we continue the work of spiritual beings: ‘ We will be conscious that physical existence is a continuation of the spiritual. In educating we carry on the work of higher beings. The right mood will be engendered when we fill ourselves with the consciousness that I continue the work of higher beings that was done before the birth of the one I am educating.’

Chrystal Hayn studied Waldorf Education in Stuttgart in the 80’s and after class teaching for 7 years trained in Eurythmy at the Ringwood Botton Eurythmy School with Chas Bamford, Monica Dorrington and Evamaria Rascher. She went on to be part of many national and international performing projects with the Botton Stage Group, Eskdale Eurythmy, Peredur Stage Group and London Eurythmy over 22 years, working mainly with Hajo Deker. She taught courses at the London College Of Eurythmy and workshops at Steiner House for several years and is part of the Foundation Stone Meditation performing work with London Eurythmy. She lives and works at The Mount Camphill Community, where she also teaches young people with special needs at the Mount Independent Specialist Residential College and is co-founder of Eurythmy India.