Eurythmy Stimulates a Child's Liveliness

Eurythmy is a special movement art form taught in Waldorf Schools. It stands at the heart of Waldorf Education as it carries the movement needed to stimulate the liveliness and vitality of the children and the school. The eurythmist, Kari Van Oordt, said that eurythmy is “controlled movement by means of rhythm and form.” In fact, everything we bring to the children in the Waldorf school is under the warm embrace of “rhythm,” for rhythm is the “healer” as Rudolf Steiner said, it is the heartbeat and in it, we find safety and warmth. 

In eurythmy, children learn to move together in special forms imbued with sacred geometry, beauty, and healing. It’s no wonder that we move in figure 8s in 8th Grade, for example, because some energy teachers say that our auras are layered with them or move in 5 pointed stars in 5th grade. When the students perform eurythmy the whole space around us becomes alive as thechildren move together in form. At that point, the vortex of movement (the whoosh in the room) is impacting not only the children’s development and well-being but also the wellness of the space we are moving in and that of the whole school or even the whole city. 

In the circle and facing toward its center the children make alchemy happen. Eurythmy carries circle work all the way through the upper grades and it is a huge task for middle schoolers to experience the vulnerability of that format. The strengthening quality of these few years of circle work experience will carry them into their adulthood because eurythmy is a movement propelled by the heart center and while in a circle, the children learn to listen deeply to each other’s footsteps, gestures, and movement. In eurythmy, we take care of each other and make sure that our movement is filled with light and care for our friends, not just the people on either side of us but also behind and in front. The individual’s senses open and become alive to all that is around us. When the children become masters of a form like the 5-pointed star and move through it individually maintaining that circle line - then we imbue the space with the quality of one large 5-pointed star. We are bringing the whole of us into a 5-pointed star balanced form. As a teacher, this is truly a wondrous experience to have - akin to flash mobs in the city. It’s a moment when you get goosebumps at the sight of the beauty, grace, and talent of so many human beings, so many different hearts coming together to create community, peace, and beauty. 

I am from Romania and I grew up dancing to beautiful traditional “horas” – circle dances done to music and rhythm with lots of detailed and precise footwork. These traditional dances prove that the healing quality of the circle movement was even understood long ago.What I’ve learned by teaching and experiencing eurythmy is that it brings warmth and peace in the heart and a loving sense of community.

While the children move with aliveness and awareness in their feet to beautiful geometric forms, their arms also express with precise gestures for verbal sounds. As they do this, the children quickly realize that they have a new language in their lives and that this language is expressed with their whole body: feet, hands, fingers, etc. I like to think that they are suffused with aliveness down to their toes as they develop a safe and familiar relationship with their inside world and the outside world. They learn to transition between the two in a harmonious way as they grow and practice this form of rhythmic movement. It is very sweet to see that eventually, each child wakes up to my speaking sounds differently, and they are so happy to offer support in expressing the beauty around them through gestures of the true sounds of the words. Through this, we all collaborate in bringing the linguistic purity of spoken sounds to life. 

In eurythmy, we not only speak sounds, express with gestures, and create pictures with our movements, but also sing with our arms and our whole body. Our bodies become instruments able to express every tone, interval, beat, and musical quality. Behind every form and gesture stands the Waldorf curriculum and eurythmy (like handwork or music or language subjects) supports what the children learn in their daily lessons. 

My experience of being a human and a teacher is definitely shaped by my own native language and heritage and every once in a while, I dance Romanian poetry so the children can see other and different sounds being expressed through eurythmy gestures and form. In my Eurythmy program we are fortunate to have live music in each class, our pianist who plays for us in the eurythmy lesson. This is such a treasure and a gift for the children to hear the sound of pure music through one instrument. 

As I contemplate this writing for our community, I realize how much of my love and understanding of eurythmy is shaped by the children at Cedarwood. I am in awe of what I experience every day as a teacher. I see children exploring eurythmy, coming up with their own exercises and form ideas, children getting excited about difficult concentration exercises, and children jumping up to offer to lead the movement. I see them moving in space with their classmates in creative forms while their arms are expressed with gestures of beautifully spoken words or musical tones. They are learning to feel through movement with their hearts wide open, to will themselves to move to form (very difficult in our times), and when in middle school to create such beauty through their own imagination and inspiration of their own forms. 

Written by Oana Havris - Oana Havris, has been involved in the Waldorf movement since her graduation from Antioch University New England in 2003 where she completed her M. Ed. and the Waldorf Certification (K-Grade 8). From her very first eurythmy lessons at Antioch, she had the feeling that the space around her breathed with life and followed this feeling all the way to Cedarwood Waldorf School where she attended the Portland Eurythmy Training in the afternoon and assisted Miss Susan Andrews in her pre-school class in the mornings. Wanting to dive even deeper in the eurythmy study, Oana went on to graduate from the Rudolf Steiner College Eurythmy Training and attend post-graduate eurythmy work in Spring Valley, NY including touring and performing with Spring Valley Performance Ensemble.

Oana feels delighted and honored to bring this magical and healing art of eurythmy to the Cedarwood children and the community.