Eurythmy grand-dame brings group with her

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 13

Eurythmy grand-dame brings group with her

PENNY CHAMBERS reports on the Stuttgart Eurythmeum and its forthcoming visit to New Zealand.

IT IS NOT a P ° P IVI group!” That is the only A 1 time Therese Holzmer raises her voice above mild and gentle decibels; normally this American-New Zealander has a serene and dreamy air, but not when she talks of her passion — eurythmy. Founded by the Austrian scien-tist-philosopher Rudolph Steiner in 1912, to give expression to his ideas about links between gestures and vocal sounds, language and music, eurythmy had its first stage performance in 1923. This month, the Stuttgart Eurythmeum, one of the world’s leading eurythmy groups, is coming to New Zealand.

Therese Holzmer, herself a eurythmist, and one of the New Zealand performance organisers, is grappling with the formidable task of bringing public renditions of eurythmy to a country which is not known for its ready acceptance of something new and avant-garde. After all, who has even heard of eurythmy, and what exactly is it? “It seems sad to have to put a label to everything, but if we must then I would say that eurythmy is the art of movement,” says Holzmer. “It is not dance, or mime, or ballet, or theatre, and yet in it you may see a resemblance to all these things.

“It is an art of movement which makes sounds and tones visible — visible speech, visible music. Unlike free expressive dance or classical ballet, eu-

rythmy gives each vowel and consonant, each musical tone and interval its own movement, its own colour.

"When performing to music or to poetry or prose, the eurythmist does not express his or her own feelings or tell a story, but expresses the music or word itself — the rhythm, pitch, tone, melody, harmony, discord.” Therese Holzmer sweeps her hands and arms in the air — eurythmically? — as she speaks with that ease and fluency so many Americans seem to possess. “But the best way to understand eurythmy is to see it being performed!” She rummages through her briefcase packed with books and photographs on the subject, and produces a video on the Stuttgart Eurythmeum filmed recently in Norway and Germany. The screen flickers, then is filled with colour — vibrant reds and blues of the sari-like robes worn by the eurythmists. They swoop and sway, plunge and soar in endlessly flowing movements, to Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony,” then Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture.”

Each eurythmist represents an instrument so the complete group “dances” when the whole orchestra plays; a single figure

performs separately whilst a flute pla"s alone. The effect is intriguing, vital and compelling, and although reminiscent of ballet, somehow quite different. “Else Klink, the director of the Stuttgart Eurythmeum, explains it this: ‘Ballet is the sublimation of the physical movement of the limbs, while eurythmy transmits the movement of the soul through the

medium of the body*,” Holzmer explains. The “Hebrides Overture” draws to a close; the audience at the Bergen Arts Festival rise to their feet and the applause is deafening. The video changes to “Twins,” a humorous poem by Henry Leigh. Accompanied by a narrator, two male eurythmists enact the story of mistaken identity; their gestures portray the sounds and intonation of the words rather than their meaning, and the performance is a very funny one. Then comes “Peer Gynt,” which will be the star attraction of the Australian and New Zealand tour (they will also be performing to a cello sonata by Shostakoitch, and some poetry). The combination of Henrik Ibsen’s narrative and Edvard Grieg’s music suit the genre of eurythmy perfectly — creative speech where speech becomes movement.

The story of Peer Gynt — a person full of error and weakness and in search of knowledge, who is finally redeemed by love regardless of all obstacles — lends itself superbly to the ideal of eurythmy, to seek harmony through confronting a discordant world. As the trolls crouch and stamp in the Hall of the Mountain King, Therese Holzmer switches off the video. “The other marvellous thing is that the director, Else Klink, will be on this tour to New Zealand. She is now aged 82, and it is really a result of a present

on her eightieth birthday that the tour is taking place at all.” Else Klink was brought up in the jungle of New Guinea, her mother a Polynesian, her father a German official of the then German colonial empire. When Else was six, her father took her on a journey that traced the history of humanity — through China, India, Egypt and Italy to Germany. She was enrolled at the Rudolph Steiner

school in Stuttgart, where the great philosopher himself recognised her talents for movement, and she trained in first Stuttgart Eurythmeum. In 1935 she became its director.

In the last 20 years she, more than all the eurythmy masters now working in the world, brought eurythmy to all the major performance theatres in Europe, Japan, the Americas, South Africa — all that is, except

Australia and New Zealand. Then on her eightieth birthday, friends and supporters from around the world, gave her money to finance a visit to her homeland, Papua New Guinea, for the first time since she was six.

But it would be out of character for Else Klink to think only of herself, and so this granddame of eurythmy has decided to extend her trip to Australia

and New Zealand, and to bring the Stuttgart Eurythmeum with her.

The group will perform in Auckland on September 21, in New Plymouth the following night, and in Hastings on September 23. Members will perform in Rotorua on September 27, then, sadly, in only one South Island venue — the James Hay Theatre, Christchurch, on September 30.