Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

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Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:47 am

Eurythmy
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/11/18

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For the movement art founded by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, see Dalcroze Eurhythmics.

Eurythmy is an expressive movement art originated by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Marie von Sivers in the early 20th century. Primarily a performance art, it is also used in education, especially in Waldorf schools, and – as part of anthroposophic medicine – for claimed therapeutic purposes.[1][2]

The word eurythmy stems from Greek roots meaning beautiful or harmonious rhythm.

Movement repertoire

The gestures in the eurythmist's movement repertoire relate to the sounds and rhythms of speech, to the tones and rhythms of music and to "soul experiences", such as joy and sorrow. Once these fundamental repertoire elements are learned, they can be composed into free artistic expressions. The eurythmist also cultivates a feeling for the qualities of straight lines and curves, the directions of movement in space (forward, backward, up, down, left, right), contraction and expansion, and color. The element of color is also emphasized both through the costuming, usually given characteristic colors for a piece or part and formed of long, loose fabrics that accentuate the movements rather than the bodily form, and through the lighting, which saturates the space and changes with the moods of the piece.[3]

Eurythmy's aim is to bring the artists' expressive movement and both the performers' and audience's feeling experience into harmony with a piece's content;[3] eurythmy is thus sometimes called "visible music" or "visible speech", expressions that originate with its founder, Rudolf Steiner, who described eurythmy as an "art of the soul".

Most eurythmy today is performed to classical (concert) music or texts such as poetry or stories. Silent pieces are also sometimes performed.[3]

Eurythmy with music

When performing eurythmy with music (also called tone eurythmy), the three major elements of music, melody, harmony and rhythm, are all expressed.[3] The melody is primarily conveyed through expressing its rise and fall; the specific pitches; and the intervallic qualities present. Harmony is expressed through movement between tension and release, as expressions of dissonance and consonance, and between the more inwardly directed minor mood and the outwardly directed major mood. Rhythm is chiefly conveyed through livelier and more contoured movements for quick notes, slower, dreamier movements for longer notes; in addition, longer tones move into the more passive (listening) back space, quicker tones into the more active front space.

Breaths or pauses are expressed through a larger or smaller movement in space, giving new impulse to what follows. Beat is conveyed through greater emphasis of downbeats, or those beats upon which stress is normally placed. Beat is generally treated as a subsidiary element. Eurythmy has only occasionally been done to popular music, in which beat plays a large role.

The timbre of individual instruments is brought into the quality both of the tonal gestures and of the whole movement of the eurythmist. Usually there will be a different eurythmist or group of eurythmists expressing each instrument, for example in chamber or symphonic music.

A piece's choreography usually expresses elements such as the major or minor key, the shape of the melody line, the interplay between voices or instruments and the relative dominance of one or another voice or instrument. Thus, musicians can often follow even the finest details of their part in the movements of the eurythmists on stage. Particular musical forms (e.g. the sonata) can have special characteristic choreographic expressions.[4]

Eurythmy with spoken texts

Eurythmy is often performed with spoken texts such as poetry, stories or plays. Speech eurythmy includes such elements as the sounds of speech, rhythms, poetic meters, grammar and mood. In speech eurythmy, all the sounds of language have characteristic gestural qualities: the sound of an 'A' is open due to the position of the articulators during the vowel. A 'k' sounds sharper due to the manner of articulation of the consonant, that it is a plosive. Note that it is the audible sounds themselves, not the letters of the written language, that are expressed.[5]

History

Eurythmy was conceived in 1911 when a widow brought her young daughter, Lory Smits, who was interested in movement and dance, to the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Due to the recent loss of her father, it was necessary for the girl to find a career. Steiner's advice was sought; he suggested that the girl begin working on a new art of movement. As preparation for this, she began to study human anatomy, to explore the human step, to contemplate the movement implicit in Greek sculpture and dance, and to find movements that would express spoken sentences using the sounds of speech. Soon a number of other young people became interested in this form of expressive movement.

During these years, Steiner was writing a new drama each year for performance at the Anthroposophical Society's summer gatherings; beginning in 1912, he began to incorporate the new art of movement into these dramas. When the Society decided to build an artistic center in Dornach, Switzerland (this later became known as the Goetheanum) a small stage group began work and offered weekly performances of the developing art. Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Steiner's wife, who was a trained actress and speech artist, was given responsibility for training and directing this ensemble. This first eurythmy ensemble went on tour in 1919, performing across Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany.[6]

Steiner saw eurythmy as a unique expression of the anthroposophical impulse:

It is the task of Anthroposophy to bring a greater depth, a wider vision and a more living spirit into the other forms of art. But the art of Eurythmy could only grow up out of the soul of Anthroposophy; could only receive its inspiration through a purely Anthroposophical conception.[7]

— Rudolf Steiner


According to Steiner: In eurythmy we present in the form and movement of the human organism a direct external proof of a man's share in the life of the supersensible world. When people do eurythmy they are linked directly with the supersensible world. Whenever art is formed from a truly artistic conviction it bears witness to the connection of the human being with the supersensible world. (Dornach, 12 September 1920) [8]

In 1924, Steiner gave two intensive workshops on different aspects of eurythmy; transcripts of his talks during these workshops are published as Eurythmy as Visible Speech and Eurythmy as Visible Singing.

Eurythmy ensembles in Stuttgart, Germany and at the Goetheanum soon became established parts of the cultural life of Europe. The Goetheanum ensemble was recognized with a gold medal at the Paris Expo of 1937/8. The Stuttgart training and ensemble, led by Else Klink, had to close in the Nazi period but reopened shortly after the close of World War II. There are now training centers and artistic ensembles in many countries.[6]

Etymology

The word eurythmy stems from Greek roots meaning beautiful or harmonious rhythm. The term was used by Ancient Greek and Roman architects to refer to the harmonious proportions of a design or building;[9] The English word eurythmy was used from the 17th to 19th century to refer not only to harmonious architectural proportions, but also to "rhythmical order or movement" and "a graceful proportion and carriage of the body".[10]

Eurythmy as a performing art

There are notable eurythmy ensembles in Dornach, Switzerland; Stuttgart, Germany; The Hague, Netherlands; London, England; Järna, Sweden, and Chestnut Ridge, New York (near New York City). All of these groups both perform locally and tour internationally. Many smaller performing groups also exist (see list). High schools that have their own performing ensembles include the San Francisco Waldorf High School ensemble.

Pedagogical eurythmy

When the first Waldorf School was founded in 1919, eurythmy was included in the curriculum.[11] It was quickly recognized as a successful complement to gymnastics in the school's movement program and is now taught in most Waldorf schools, as well as in many non-Waldorf pre-school centers, kindergartens and schools. It is taught to all ages from pre-schools through high school and into college. Its purpose is to awaken and strengthen the expressive capacities of children through movement, stimulating the child to bring imagination, ideation and conceptualization to the point where they can manifest these as "vital, moving forms" in physical space.[3] It is also thought to improve balance, coordination, concentration, rhythm, and form an awareness of patterns.

Eurythmy pedagogical exercises begin with the straight line and curve and proceed through successively more complicated geometric figures and choreographed forms, developing a child's coordination and concentration. An extensive set of special exercises has also been developed for pedagogical purposes.[3] These include metamorphosing geometric patterns and dynamic movement sequences.

Rods or balls are sometimes used in exercises to develop precision in movement, to expand the experience of space, develop precise balance, and to objectify the movement experience. The rods are usually approximately the length of an arm; the balls are of a size to fit comfortably in one hand. Both are generally made of copper, a material receptive to warmth.

Though there are some independent post-graduate trainings for pedagogical eurythmy, this aspect is frequently included in courses focusing on artistic work.

Therapeutic eurythmy

Eurythmy is a component of anthroposophic medicine,[1] a system of alternative medicine which has been criticised as unscientific,[12] pseudoscientific[13] and as "pure quackery".[14]

According to the precepts of anthroposophic medicine, a human has four aspects which need to be treated: spirit, soul, life and matter.[2] Eurythmy is one of the practices said to act on the "life" aspect, and is claimed to effect an "improvement of health related life functions".[2] A person receiving eurthymy therapy moves under the guidance of a eurythmy therapist, who will have been trained two years beyond the four-year fundamental course in eurythmy. The movements may be adapted to the condition of the person being treated; for example, they may be done while either sitting or even lying down.[15] Therapeutic eurythmy is claimed to bring about a "re-integration of body, soul, and spirit."[2]

A 2008 review in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine said that eurythmy was a "potentially relevant add-on" to a therapeutic program,[16] but though the studies reviewed reported improvement in symptoms, limitations in the underlying data and in the review methods means these conclusions "warrant cautious interpretation".[17]

See also

• American Eurythmy School

References

1. Rawlings, Roger. "Rudolf Steiner's Quackery". QuackWatch. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
2. Heusser, Peter; Kienle, Gunver Sophia (2009). "Anthroposophic medicine, integrative oncology, and mistletoe therapy of cancer". In Abrams, Donald; Weil, Andrew. Integrative Oncology. Weil Integrative Medicine Library. Oxford University Press. p. 327. ISBN 978-0-19-988585-5.
3. Carlo Willmann, Waldorfpädogogik, Böhlau Verlag, ISBN 3-412-01898-8, 1998.
4. Robert A. McDermott, The Essential Steiner, ISBN 0-06-065345-0, p. 403
5. [non-primary source needed]Steiner on eurythmy.
6. Alan Stott, Eurythmy: its Birth and Development, ISBN 0-9541048-4-6
7. Rudolf Steiner's "Lecture on Eurythmy" August 26, 1923
8. Biesantz/Klingborg, The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner's Architectural Impulse (London, 1979), p. 49
9. Matila Ghyka, The Geometry of Art and Life, Sheen and Ward, NY 1946, p. 5.
10. "Eurhythmy", Oxford English Dictionary, accessed 1/14/14
11. Karl Stockmeyer, Rudolf Steiner's Curriculum for Waldorf Schools, Steiner Schools Fellowship, 1985
12. McKie, Robin; Hartmann, Laura (29 April 2012). "Holistic unit will 'tarnish' Aberdeen University reputation". The Observer.
13. Dugan, Dan (2002). Michael Shermer, ed. Anthroposophy and Anthroposophical Medicine. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-57607-653-8.
14. Jump, Paul (11 May 2012). "Aberdeen decides against alternative medicine chair". Times Higher Education Supplement.
15. Hübner, Jutta (2008). Komplementäre Onkologie: supportive Maßnahmen und evidenzbasierte Empfehlungen. Schattauer Verlag. pp. 13–14.
16. Büssing A, Ostermann T, Majorek M, Matthiessen PF (2008). "Eurythmy Therapy in clinical studies: a systematic literature review". BMC Complement Altern Med. 8: 8. doi:10.1186/1472-6882-8-8. PMC 2322948  . PMID 18377647.
17. "Eurythmy Therapy in clinical studies: a systematic literature review", Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, 7 April 2009 http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/ShowRe ... 0Yu14XePN0 Missing or empty |title= (help)

Bibliography

• Kirchner-Bockholt and Wood, Fundamental Principles of Curative Eurythmy , ISBN 0-904693-40-6
• Poplawski, Thomas, Eurythmy: Rhythm, Dance and Soul, ISBN 0-88010-459-7
• Siegloch, Magdalene, How the New Art of Eurythmy Began, ISBN 0-904693-90-2
• Spock, Marjorie, Eurythmy, ISBN 0-910142-88-2
• Steiner, Rudolf, Eurythmy as Visible Speech, ISBN 0-85440-421-X
• Steiner, Rudolf, Eurythmy as Visible Singing
• Steiner, Rudolf, An Introduction to Eurythmy: Talks Given Before Sixteen Eurythmy Performances , ISBN 0-88010-042-7

External links

• Eurythmy Association of North America
• Performance of Gubaidulina's Seven Last Words
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Re: Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 5:56 am

Dalcroze Eurhythmics
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/11/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Dalcroze Eurhythmics, also known as the Dalcroze Method or simply eurhythmics, is one of several developmental approaches including the Kodály Method, Orff Schulwerkand Suzuki Method used to teach music to students. Eurhythmics was developed in the early 20th century by Swiss musician and educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. Dalcroze Eurhythmics teaches concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression using movement, and is the concept for which Dalcroze is best known. It focuses on allowing the student to gain physical awareness and experience of music through training that takes place through all of the senses, particularly kinesthetic.

Eurhythmics often introduces a musical concept through movement before the students learn about its visual representation. This sequence translates to heightened body awareness and an association of rhythm with a physical experience for the student, reinforcing concepts kinesthetically. Eurhythmics has wide-ranging applications and benefits and can be taught to a variety of age groups. Eurhythmics classes for all ages share a common goal – to provide the music student with a solid rhythmic foundation through movement in order to enhance musical expression and understanding. The origin of the word "Eurhythmics" is "Eurythmy" + "-ics" [1].

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and the Origins of Eurhythmics

Jaques-Dalcroze was appointed Professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire of Geneva in 1892, early in his career. As he taught his classes, he noticed that his students deeply needed an approach to learning music that included a kinesthetic component. He believed that in order to enhance and maximize musical expression, students needed to be trained early on to listen and appreciate music using both their minds and bodies. This coordination of mind and physical instincts formed the basis of his method.

Ready to develop and employ an improved, integrated style of music education at the Conservatoire, Dalcroze discovered some obstacles. He found that students with innate rhythmic abilities were rare, just as those with “perfect,” or absolute pitch are. In response to his observations, he asserted that in order to develop rhythmic ability in his students, he must first, and as early as possible in their development, train them in exercises that utilized the entire body. Only when the student’s muscles and motor skills were developed could they be properly equipped to interpret and understand musical ideas. As he mentioned in the foreword of his “Rhythm, Music, and Education,” he sought the “connection between instincts for pitch and movement…time and energy, dynamics, and space, music and character, music and temperament, [and] finally the art of music and the art of dancing.”

Because of the nature of his goals in expanding music education, his ideas are readily applicable to young students. An objective of his was to “musicalize” young children in order to prepare them for musical expression in future instrumental studies. He believed exposure to music, an expanded understanding of how to listen, and the training of gross and fine motor skills would yield faster progress later on in students’ musical studies. Related to this was his goal to sow the seeds of musical appreciation for future generations.

As stated concisely by Claire-Lise Dutoit in her “Music Movement Therapy,” successful eurhythmics lessons have the following three attributes in common:

“The vital enjoyment of rhythmic movement and the confidence that it gives; the ability to hear, understand and express music in movement; [and] the call made on the pupil to improvise and develop freely his own ideas.”

Important Influences on the development of Eurhythmics

Before taking a post teaching theory, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze spent a year as a conductor in Algiers, where he was exposed to a rhythmic complexity that helped influence him to pay special attention to rhythmic aspects of music.

Jaques-Dalcroze also had an important friendship with Édouard Claparède, the renowned psychologist. In particular, their collaboration resulted in eurhythmics often employing games of change and quick reaction in order to focus attention and increase learning.

Current Applications

General Education


Eurhythmics classes are often offered as an addition to general education programs, whether in preschools, grade schools, or secondary schools. In this setting, the objectives of eurhythmics classes are to introduce students with a variety of musical backgrounds to musical concepts through movement without a specific performance-related goal.

For younger students, eurhythmics activities often imitate play. Games include musical storytelling, which associates different types of music with corresponding movements of the characters in a story. The youngest of students, who are typically experiencing their first exposure to musical knowledge in a eurhythmics class, learn to correlate types of notes with familiar movement; for example the quarter note is represented as a “walking note.” As they progress, their musical vocabulary is expanded and reinforced through movement.

Performance-Based Applications

While eurhythmics classes can be taught to general populations of students, they are also effective when geared toward music schools, either preparing students to begin instrumental studies or serving as a supplement to students who have already begun musical performance.

Aspects of a Rhythmic Curriculum

Vocabulary


Eurhythmics classes for students in elementary school through college and beyond can benefit from a rhythmic curriculum that explores rhythmic vocabulary. This vocabulary can be introduced and utilized in a number of different ways, but the primary objective of this component is to familiarize students with rhythmic possibilities and expand their horizons. Activities such as rhythmic dictation, composition, and the performance of rhythmic canons and polyrhythms can accommodate a wide range of meters and vocabulary. In particular, vocabulary can be organized according to number of subdivisions of the pulse.

Movement

A key component of a rhythmic education, movement provides another way of reinforcing rhythmic concepts - kinesthetic learning serves as a supplement to visual and aural learning. While the study of traditional classroom music theory reinforces concepts visually and encourages students to develop aural skills, the study of eurhythmics solidifies these concepts through movement. In younger students, the movement aspect of a rhythmic curriculum also develops musculature and gross motor skills. Ideally, most activities that are explored in eurhythmics classes should include some sort of kinesthetic reinforcement.

Meter and Syncopation

Another element of a rhythmic curriculum is the exploration of meter and syncopation. In particular, the study of meter should incorporate an organization of pulses and subdivisions. This organization can be expressed in a “meter chart,” which can include both equal-beat and unequal-beat meters.

The study of syncopation, a broad term that can involve a variety of rhythms that fall unexpectedly or somehow displace the pulse, is also essential in a rhythmic education. Eurhythmics classes can incorporate various activities to explore syncopation, including complex rhythmic dictations, the performance of syncopated rhythms, the exploration of syncopated rhythms in canon, and a general discussion of syncopated vocabulary.

Sample Activities

Ages 3–6:


• Warm-up activities: The students isolate and shake each body part, each one accompanied by different music.
• Notes: Students learn about musical notation through associated movements. For example, quarter notes would be taught as “walking notes”. After familiarity with associated movements, note names are then introduced.
• Storytelling: The teacher invents a story or uses a familiar storyline to incorporate rhythmic concepts
• Ball games: Students pass a ball around in different ways, exploring naturally occurring rhythm and developing motor skills
• Games with sticks: The students jump across a series of sticks on the floor, learning to coordinate body parts and their associated rhythm.
• Drum activities: The students participate with small drums, getting to reproduce rhythm in an instrumental context

Ages 7+ (activities can be adapted to different age groups)

• Swings: The teacher plays music improvised in a preset metrical pattern. The students use prescribed body motions to determine the pattern.
• Rhythmic dictation: The teacher plays a number of measures of music repeatedly, the rhythm of which the students dictate.
• Rhythms: Students clap or step a predetermined rhythmic pattern. The teacher can experiment with augmentation and diminution.
• Small group activities: Students work together in small groups to accomplish rhythmic tasks, encouraging cooperation.
• Ball games: Students pass a ball around in different ways, exploring naturally occurring rhythm and developing motor skills.
• Tempos: Students work to discover different tempos that can be applied to classical repertoire, familiar songs, or everyday movements. The teacher can also lead in experimenting with tempo relationships and adjustment.
• Polyrhythms: The teacher establishes two rhythms to be performed at once, one in the hands and one in the feet.
• Cross rhythms: Students produce one even rhythm in the hands against another even rhythm in the feet. The teacher prompts them to switch which rhythm is produced in each body part.
• “Cosmic Whole Note”: Students listen to a slow pulse (an example would be 6 beats per minute), subdivide the space between sounds, and predict when the next pulse sounds by clapping.
• Canon: Students listen to rhythmic vocabulary performed by the teacher and step this vocabulary in canon. This activity can be executed in a variety of meters.
• “Microbeats”: Students learn syllables to represent 1-9 subdivisions of a beat. Associated activities could include performing microbeats in prescribed patterns, at varying tempi, in canon, or as sight-reading.

List of Institutions with Higher Education Course Offerings of Eurhythmics

• Baldwin Wallace University offers a Solfege / Eurythmics course as part of its conservatory program https://www.bw.edu/schools/conservatory-music/
• Longy School of Music of Bard College has an extensive program, including Dalcroze certificate and license training
• Carnegie Mellon University, as part of the Martha Sanchez Dalcroze Training Center
• Cleveland Institute of Music offers a Eurhythmics program
• Hope College offers various Dalcroze Eurythmics courses for music and dance majors/minors
• The Ohio State University courses for music and dance majors/minors
• Colorado State University
• Oberlin Conservatory of Music
• Stony Brook University
• University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music offers Eurhythmics as part of their Percussion pedagogy [2]

Effectiveness of Dalcroze Eurhythmics

A group of 72 pre-school children were tested on their rhythmic ability; half of the children had free-play (35–40 min.) twice a week for a 10-week period while the other half had rhythmic movement classes for the same amount of time. The group that had classes (experimental group) did significantly better than the group that just had free-play (control group). The experiment group scored four or more points better in every area tested than the control group in the final test. This shows that eurhythmic classes can benefit a child’s sense of rhythm.[1]

Further reading

• Abramson, Robert M. Rhythm Games for Perception and Cognition. New York: Music and Movement Press, 1973.
• Agrell, Jeffrey. Improvisation games for classical musicians : a collection of musical games with suggestions for use : for performers, instrumental teachers, music students, music therapists, bands, orchestras, choirs, chamber music ensembles, conductors, composers, pianists, percussionists, and everybody else (even jazz players). Chicago: GIA Publications, c2008.
• Alperson, Ruth. A qualitative study of Dalcroze eurhythmics classes for adults. 1995.
• American Dalcroze Journal, from the Dalcroze Society of America
• Berger, Linda Marie. The effects of Dalcroze eurhythmics instruction on selected music competencies of third- and fifth-grade general music students. 1999.
• Berkowitz, Sol. Improvisation through keyboard harmony. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975.
• Caldwell, J. Timothy. Dalcroze eurhythmics with Robert M. Abramson [video recording]. Chicago, Il. : GIA Publications, c1992.

See also

• Eurythmy, the art of articulating movement originated by Marie von Sivers and Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century. The word derives from Greek roots meaning beautiful or harmonious rhythm.
• Gurdjieff movements, a system of movement developed by G. I. Gurdjieff and Jeanne de Salzmann in the early to the late 20th century.

References

1. Zachopoulou, Evridiki, Vassiliki Drri, Dimitris Chatzopoulou, Theordoros Elinoudis. The Application of Orff and Dalcroze Activities in Preschool Children: Do They Affect the Level of Rhythmic Ability?Physical Educator; Spring2003, Vol. 60 Issue 2, p51, 7p. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost, UWEC McIntyre Library, Eau Claire WI 1 December 2006 researchgate.net
• Hansen, Kristen S., A Musical Game for Every Age-Group. Teaching Music, Vol. 9 Issue 1. EBSCOhost. UWEC McIntyre Library Eau Claire WI. Dec. 1 2006
• Mead, Virginia Hoge, More than Mere Movement: Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Music Educators Journal Feb 1986 v72 n6 p42-46 ERIC EBSCOhost. UWEC McIntyre Library, Eau Claire, WI. 1 December 2006
• Johnson, Monica Dale, Dalcroze Skills of All Teachers, Music Educators Journal. ERIC. EBSCOhost. UWEC McIntyre Library, Eau Claire, WI 1 December 2006
• Swaiko, Nancy. The Role and Value of a Eurhythmics Program in a Curriculum of Deaf Children. American Annals of the Deaf Jun74 119, 3, 321-4. ERIC. EBSCOhost. UWEC McIntyre Library, Eau Claire, WI. 1 December 2006.
• Waller, Johnny, and Steve Rapport. Sweet Dreams: the Definitive Biography of Eurythmics. Toronto: Stoddart, 1985. ISBN 0-7737-5026-6
• Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile. Rhythm, Music & Education. London & Whitstable: The Riverside Press Ltd., 1967. (First published 1921)
• Findlay, Elsa. Rhythm and Movement: Applications of Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Evanston: Summy-Birchard Company, 1971.
• Bachmann, Marie-Laure. Dalcroze Today: an Education through and into Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
• Dutoit, Claire-Lise. Music Movement Therapy. London: The Riverside Press Ltd, 1965.
• Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile. Eurhythmics Art and Education. London: Chatto & Windus, 1930.

External links

• Dalcroze Society of America
• Dalcroze Council of Australia
• Dalcroze Canada
• Musikinesis has a few pieces of music by Jaques-Dalcroze that can be freely downloaded in PDF format
• Dalcroze Society UK
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Re: Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:20 am

In the Company of Visionaries: Dalcroze, Laban, and Perrottet
by Paul Murphy, State University of New York at Fredonia [1]
Fall/Winter 2014

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


That the musical theories of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) would intersect with the movement theories of Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958) is a notion that, in retrospect, seems inevitable given the creative paths pursued by these two visionary artists. As contemporaries, Dalcroze and Laban were linked through direct interactions, indirect collaborators, and even geopolitics. Fundamentally though, the two artists shared a common revolutionary motivation that encompassed a fascination with true, objective analysis, a progressive response to empirical evidence, and a rejection of inherited assumptions about art and learning. Perhaps most relevant to an understanding of their connection, they both collaborated with the visionary artist Suzanne Perrottet (1889-1983), a remarkable musician, dancer, and educator who literally embodied much of Dalcroze’s and Laban’s work. Yet, today we are only beginning to encounter scholarship on this captivating and rich topic, and still only rarely engage in the fruitful discourse that regularly follows from an investigation into the connections between these artists’ work. Such discourse proves invaluable to musicians, dancers and, really, to all performing artists. The present effort is a modest response to this situation, an attempt to help fill this void by laying out the background of Dalcroze’s and Laban’s direct and (via Perrottet) indirect exchange and by citing distinct differences in their view of music and dance.

Background

Rather than trace the complete biographies of Dalcroze, Laban, and Perrottet, I focus on those aspects that either are not commonly known or that provide a particular perspective for comparison. Clearly, the most obvious feature common to both their lives was the experimental milieu in which they developed, specifically, that of the energized urban cultural centers of Western Europe in the early years of the twentieth century. Their lives essentially parallel the chronology of the great Modernist period in music, dance, the visual arts, literature, and film, a time that the literary critic Daniel Albright places convincingly between roughly 1885 and 1950 and which he unifies as being motivated broadly by a desire to test the limits of aesthetic construction (Albright, 2004). This was an era that bore the famous Paris World Exposition of 1889, the symbolist poets and impressionist composers, the expressionist painters, Dada, the surrealists, and more than a dozen artistic movements and counter movements described as one or another “ism.” Importantly, this era included the premiere of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps (1913)—in collaboration with Vaslav Nijinsky, and Nicholas Roerich, along with Dalcroze’s student Marie Rambert who served as both performer and dance mistress—as well as the choreography of Witch Dance by Mary Wigman (1914), who, in addition to having earned the Dalcroze Certificat, was a student of Laban’s and remains one of the most important figures in expressionist dance.

Exchanges

But what was the nature of exchange between Dalcroze and Laban? In any meaningful investigation of this exchange–be it artistic, philosophical, theoretical, or social–we cannot overlook the role as conduit, muse, colleague, collaborator, and lover played by Suzanne Perrottet (Odom, 2008).2 It was the twenty-one-year-old Perrottet whom Dalcroze relied upon so heavily in the early years at the Utopian garden city of Hellerau, near Dresden, offering her a three-year contract to assist him and colleague Nina Gorter in teaching rhythmic gymnastics and improvisation lessons. And it was she who left Hellerau in 1913 to join Laban at the vegetarian artist commune-sanatorium Monte Verità in Ascona at the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Italian region of Switzerland. (Laban had been offered the position of Director of the new “School of All the Arts of Life” at Monte Verità (Bergsohn, 2003).  

Suzanne Perrottet’s affiliation with Dalcroze actually began as early as 1903 at the Geneva Conservatoire: she was instrumental in presenting his early work at his first demonstration group shown to Swiss music educators in 1905 and later, as Dalcroze became more widely known, to educators across Europe. Throughout her teens she worked closely with Dalcroze as he experimented with exercises in breathing, walking, and conducting. At this time, she was immersed not only in Dalcroze’s work, but also in the broader world of European modernism and, especially, educational innovation. At Hellerau, her duties were substantial, teaching nearly as much as Dalcroze and Gorter did, in addition to attending Dalcroze’s lessons and touring throughout Russia and Germany.

But in May of 1912, to recuperate from this vigorous schedule, and at the request of the Dohrn family, the primary benefactors of Hellerau, she took leave at the Weisser Hirch (White Deer) sanatorium established outside Dresden by Dr. Heinrich Lahmann (1860– 1905), an early European champion of vegetarian diets and natural, holistic health. While undergoing a sixweek convalescence at Weisser Hirsch she met Laban who was also staying at the sanatorium recovering from exhaustion. Ultimately, she fell in love with him, and in 1916 bore a child, named Allar. Most importantly the stay at the sanatorium allowed for the direct interaction between Laban and Perrottet, allowing her to share her rich understanding of the work that she and Dalcroze were so intensely developing. As Valerie Preston- Dunlop describes the occurrence:

Laban took a cure at the Weisser Hirsch Sanatorium outside Dresden, a place renowned for its alternative approach to health. Over-work, a perpetual state with Laban, led to persistent and insidious stomach troubles and depression. Coincidentally he was invited to the dress rehearsal of the Dalcroze school’s opening of their new premises, purpose-built in the garden suburb of Dresden-Hellerau. This was a grand occasion of great interest to the dance community of Europe, people coming from England and further afield to see the first performance in the magnificent surroundings of what was regarded as the most significant new school of movement of the day. To have been invited implies that Laban was already a recognized figure in the arts. (Preston-Dunlop, 1998, pp. 26-27)


This was not Laban’s only invitation to visit Hellerau; Dalcroze’s biographer, Irwin Specter, notes that Laban actually visited the site frequently and even returned there after the war when the school reopened under different direction (Preston-Dunlop, 1998). Although the summer of 1912 might very well have been the first opportunity for Laban and Dalcroze to meet in person, it is likely that the hours of discussion between Perrottet and Laban were just as fruitful for the exchange of ideas regarding music and movement, with Dalcroze’s work being transmitted directly through the thoroughly engaged colleague Perrottet. One could go even further to suggest that Suzanne Perrottet, both from within and from outside the confines of Hellerau, provided the most significant means of–albeit indirect–interaction between Dalcroze and Laban. She was able to convey a first-hand understanding of Dalcroze’s work, methods, and theories and was thus instrumental in helping inspire and solidify the theories of movement analysis ripening in the mind of Laban.

As she was for Dalcroze, Perrottet was an invaluable collaborator for Laban in his teaching. Evelyn Doerr provides a sense of Perrottet’s role in the Laban School in Zurich in 1915-1916:

The large practice room in the ground floor apartment at Seegartenstraß was planned as the department for the art of movement, acting, and music. It was here that dance, pantomime, acting, recitation, oration and rhetoric, singing and instrumental music, theory, harmony, aural training, rhythmics and, for the special classes, film acting would be taught. The school was furthermore affiliated to a Reigenturnschule led by Suzanne Perrottet. As a former Dalcroze student, she in particular addressed the artistic development of the body according to the method of Dalcroze and taught classes for children and lay dancers in vocal and breathing training, and maintenance and speaking. (Doerr, 2008, pp. 55-56)


In 1924, when Laban left Zurich for Germany, Perrottet stayed, and changed the name of his former “Labanschule” to “Bewegungs-Schule Suzanne Perrottet” [Movement School of Suzanne Perrottet]. A poster explaining this change3 (Fig. 1) illustrates Perrottet’s understanding of the term “eurhythmics”:

A message to the friends of our aspirations! Because the name “Eurythmics” has received, through the use of Rudolf Steiner, a certain color, which is not related to the direction of our work, we have decided that the previous name of our school “School of Eurythmics” (former Labanschule) be changed to the “Movement-School Suzanne Perrottet” (Former Labanschule). We hope, thereby, to avoid any further confusion of our efforts with the system of Rudolf Steiner. At the same time, we are pleased to announce that we have gained as a staff member in our school, Miss Ria Ryser of the Wigman School in Dresden. (trans. Murphy)


Perrottet played an even more direct role as Laban developed his theories and moved away from an inherited assumption of music as obligatory “scaffolding” to dance. As an accomplished musician, first studying the violin, then the piano (at which she became an expert improviser), Perrottet not only served as music teacher to Laban’s pupils, but as she recounted in a conversation with Giorgio J. Wolfensberger, was also an invaluable primary advisor and accompanist to Laban himself as he pursued his own compositional aspirations despite his limited formal training in music:

This musical collaboration was very fruitful, since during my long training in traditional music I had also learned composition and notation. So the music that Laban was seeking presented me no significant problems. He wrote songs and dance pieces and gave me themes to develop. The music was built harmonically on the ‘devil’s interval’–the middle of the octave is always viewed as ‘l’intervalle du diable.’ Laban also criticized musical notation as being much too complicated. He had developed a new form of notation that used numbers instead. He also said that the five horizontal lines were also not necessary any more. Musical sounds were probably written earlier in an expanding spiral [that] corresponded to the anatomical ear. (Wofensberger, G., 1995, p. 143)


In fact, Perrottet was a crucial collaborator in Laban’s teaching of dance and was most likely responsible for the mere inclusion of music in his own teaching, given his view of music and dance as two separate pursuits. (Dörr, 2008)

Perspectives

At least on the surface, Laban’s ideas of movement hardly demonstrate the same orientation toward education, as do those of Dalcroze. For Laban, movement, and movement analysis serve dance in both its broadest terms (the art of dance) and its most individualized terms (a person’s harmony of movement). Indeed, as the dance historian John Foster states, Laban “was not intrinsically interested in movement as an educational tool and vehicle” and that “only part of his work has ideas with educational significance.” (Foster, 1977, p. 39) In contrast, though, he also suggests that a post-Hellerau educational connection existed in England when first Dalcroze’s, then Laban’s theories began to be integrated into general education. Foster explains:

A liaison has always existed between the work of Dalcroze and Laban. Even when Laban came to England, Dalcroze pupils were here. [For example,] Miss Edith Clark, a one-time Staff Inspector of Physical Education, worked with Dalcroze and studied at Hellerau but also supported the efforts to introduce Laban movement in English schools. (Foster, 1977, p. 39)


Today, the legacy of Dalcroze’s theories in education is clear: his ideas, techniques, and materials–now a century old–are used throughout the world not only in musical education, but in related educational contexts as well. Regarding Laban, it is evident today that his principles and methodology of movement analysis have likewise had a profound global effect on dance and movement educators. Laban’s movement analysis and Labanotation are also taught throughout the world; they have evolved into their own disciplines and are utilized by performers and choreographers in explicit and subtle ways. In the same way that a Dalcroze education remains with a student throughout life, so does a genuine, internalized understanding of one’s own movement qualities through the analysis originally developed by Laban. This is so because, fundamentally, both Laban and Dalcroze share at the core of their work the sincerest respect for the individual, a motivation that cultivates individual expression not only as a thing to be developed in terms of the individual, but also something that benefits all of us as social beings.

Foster also notes that explicit links between the two visionaries do exist: both require that proponents and teachers of their work be creative, imaginative models themselves. Both experimented with the effect of large movement ensembles as suggested by Dalcroze in “The Technique of Moving Plastic” (Dalcroze, 1930, pp. 28-29.), witnessed in the Fête de Juin in Geneva (1914), and demonstrated by Laban’s Festival Vaudois at Lausanne (1913) involving 1,800 people. Dalcroze’s cultivation of plastique animée is likewise connected to Laban’s broader concept of movement: both hold a similar understanding, stemming from Classical antiquity, of the goals of eurhythmics (Foster, 1977). In a contemporaneous account of the relationship between Dalcroze and Laban, Nathalie Tingey, a student at Hellerau, and later President of the Dalcroze Teachers’ Union in England, states, “So far as Jaques’ contact with Laban was concerned, both worked very amicably together at first in 1910 when Jaques went to Hellerau, but disagreed later in their respective views on the place of (a) music and movement and (b) dance and music.” (Foster, 1977, p. 58.)

Although it is clear that Laban ultimately pursued a future for dance and movement that was independent from music, his early regard for and influence by Dalcroze’s work cannot be dismissed. From his own account of that first visit to Hellerau, Laban’s enthusiasm for what Dalcroze was doing is unequivocal:

. . . At last I felt strong enough to take a look at the garden city of Hellerau and visit Jacques [sic] Dalcroze’s institute. It was on a day when festival rehearsals as well as classroom lessons were being performed for artists and journalists . . . . What an enormous cultural achievement! You are aware how familiar I am with rhythm, as well as dance, music, etc. Here, it evolves altogether into a religiously complete effect, our religion of the future. I have met Jacques himself, his teachers and students, and I am exuberant just thinking of the possibilities . . . it was an experience that will play a part in my own development. (Perrottet, S., 1995, p. 93.)


Still, Valerie Preston-Dunlop is keen to point out what was perhaps an unbridgeable gap between the immediate goals of Dalcroze and Laban as she interprets this initial contact between the two artists:

While the reports of the performances [at Hellerau] were glowing in the reviews, and Laban was full of praise for it, he saw no future for a successful way forward in dance while it remained tied to music, as it was in the Dalcroze method. In fact this [first] performance spurred him on to bypass Dalcroze and to try to find his own way towards a revolution in dance. (Dunlop-Preston, V., 1998, p. 26-27.)


Conclusion

Preston-Dunlop’s apt assessment, rather than confusing the issue of influence between Dalcroze and Laban, confirms that the debate on this topic is far from settled. On the one hand, it is not difficult to view Laban and Dalcroze as striving in large part for a common goal, that is, to revise our understanding of both artistic expressiveness and the means by which we cultivate that in ourselves and others. On the other hand, it is equally plausible that the first visit to Hellerau was, indeed, the motivation for Laban to follow what was clearly a strong, but perhaps nascent desire to “liberate” dance from music. Surely Laban was influenced–and initially quite impressed– by Dalcroze’s work. But, conversely, we can’t help but wonder if it was Laban’s work with immense performing ensembles at the Festival Vaudois at Lausanne in 1913 that influenced Dalcroze’s idea for a similar spectacle at the Fête de Juin in Geneva a year later, and, even a half-decade after that for his famous “Eurhythmics and Moving Plastic” essay in 1919. Now, a century hence, we are perhaps best served by viewing Dalcroze and Laban–through Perrottet–both as artists with curiosity too dynamic to be confined by one specific, immediate objective, and as enlightened visionaries who shared and borrowed with a steadfast gaze into the future.

Paul Murphy is Chair of the Division of Music Theory, History, and Composition at SUNY-Fredonia. He holds the Certificate in Dalcroze Eurhythmics from Carnegie Mellon University and has a life-long experience as an accompanist for ballet and modern dance. He is co-author of The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills (W. W. Norton 2011) and author of the Spanish/English edition General Rules of Accompaniment: José de Torres’s Treatise of 1736, (Indiana University Press, 2000). His interest in Spanish harmonic theories of the Baroque period has resulted in scholarly articles for Theoria and Studies in Medievalism, as well as presentations throughout the United States and Europe. He regularly teaches courses across the music theory and musicianship curriculum, including a popular offering “Rhythm and Gesture in Music”.

_______________

References:

Albright, D. (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dörr, E. (2008). Rudolf Laban: The Dancer of the Crystal. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Foster, J. (1977). The Influences of Rudolph [sic] Laban. London: Lepus Books.

Jaques-Dalcroze, É, (1930). Eurhythmics, Art and Education. (F. Rothwell, Trans.) Ed. Cynthia Cox. New York: Arno Press, 1980.

Lee, J. W. (1995). Dalcroze by Any Other Name: Eurhythmics in Early Modern Theatre and Dance. Dissertation, Texas Tech University.

Moore, S. F. (1992). The Writings of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze: Toward a Theory for the Performance of Musical Rhythm. Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University.

Newlove, J., & Dalby, J. (2004). Laban for All. New York: Routlage.

Odom, S.J. (1998). “Jaques-Dalcroze, Émile,” in International Encyclopedia of Dance: A Project of Dance Perspectives Foundation, Selma Jeanne Cohen (Ed.), pp. 594-97. New York: Oxford University Press.

Odom, S. J. (2002). Meeting Suzanne Perrottet. American Dalcroze Journal, 28(3), 6-8.

Odom, S. J. (2002). Suzanne Perrottet: Writing a Teacher’s Career. American Dalcroze Journal, 29(1), 6-8.

Partch-Bergsohn, I. & Bergsohn, H. (2003). The Makers of Modern Dance in Germany: Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss. Hightstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company.

Preston-Dunlop, V. (1998). Rudolf Laban: An Extraordinary Life. London: Dance Books.

Spector, I. (1990). Rhythm and Life: The Work of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendraon Press.

Wolfensberger, G.J. (1995). (Ed. and trans.) Perrottet, Suzanne: Ein Bewegtes Leben. Weinheim: Beltz Quadriga.
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Re: Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:25 am

Annie Lennox, Steiner schools and eurythmy/eurhythmics
by The Guardian Corrections and clarifications column editor
Thu 31 May 2012 16.00 EDT First published on Thu 31 May 2012 16.00 EDT

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An article about schools run on principles based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner suggested that the singer Annie Lennox had attended such a school and that she had "named the Eurythmics after eurhythmy, a Steiner exercise involving stretching and hopping to music". Lennox did not in fact have a Steiner education; the name of the band came from eurhythmics, a method of teaching music developed by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, which Lennox encountered at her non-Steiner school, rather than eurythmy, the movement art and therapy associated with the Steiner movement (A different class, 26 May, page 48).
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Re: Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 7:25 am

The Contemporary Context of Gurdjieff’s Movements
by Carole M. Cusack
University of Sydney

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YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Gurdjieff Introduces the Movements

• The ‘sacred dances’ or ‘Movements’ were introduced by G. I. Gurdjieff (c. 1866-1949) in 1919, in Tiflis (Tblisi), the site of the foundation of his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.

• The proximate cause of this new technique has been hypothesised to be Jeanne de Salzmann (1889-1990), an instructor of the eurhythmics method of music education developed by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950).

• Jeanne and her husband Alexandre had become pupils of Gurdjieff in 1919, and it was her Dalcroze class that Gurdjieff first taught Movements to.

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The Contemporary Context

• Esoteric systems of musical education and dance proliferated at the time. Eurhythmy, devised by the former Theosophist and founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in 1912, is an obvious comparison.

• Steiner and Jaques-Dalcroze established headquarters for the teaching of their systems, Steiner at Dornach in Switzerland, and Jaques-Dalcroze at Hellerau in Germany.

• Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958) developed a similar system, ‘movement choir’, based on his spiritual beliefs, which were derived from Theosophy, Sufism, and Hermeticism.

• Peter Deunov (1854-1944), a Bulgarian teacher of esoteric Christianity (educated in the USA from 1888-1895), devised Paneurhythmy (‘supreme cosmic rhythm’) in the 1920s.

• The Ballets Russes’ The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky with a score by Igor Stravinsky, debuted in Paris in 1913.

Gurdjieff, Music & Dance

• Gurdjieff was deeply interested in music, theatre, and art.

• When P. D. Ouspensky met him in 1915 he spoke of ‘sacred dances’ he had seen in Eastern temples, and was working on a ballet (which was never performed), The Struggle of the Magicians, in which the heroine Zeinab, and her lover Gafar, are caught in the struggle of the White and Black Magicians.

Let us be quite clear on the point: Blavatsky was regarded as a personality from whom, as out of an electrically-charged Leyden jar, the electric sparks — occult truths — could be produced.

It would lead too far if I were to tell you of all the intermediate links, but certain matters of importance must be mentioned. A really crucial moment had arrived which I can indicate in the following way; although expressed somewhat symbolically, it is in strict accordance with the facts. — The occultists of the right-wing, who in conjunction with the middle party had agreed to the compromise, could say to themselves: It may well be that something very significant can be forthcoming from this personality. But those belonging to the left-wing could also say with assurance: It is possible to achieve something extremely effective in the world with the help of this personality! — And now a veritable battle was waged around her, on the one side with the honest purpose of having much of what the initiates knew, substantiated; on the other side, for the sake of far-reaching, special aims.

-- The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modern Culture, by Rudolf Steiner


• With Thomas de Hartmann, a classical composer, Gurdjieff composed hundreds of pieces of music (both for Movements and piano music). Late in his life he improvised on the harmonium.

• He styled himself ‘a rather good teacher of temple dances’

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Gurdjieff’s Teaching in Brief

• Law of Three (Triamazikamno) which can be expressed as affirming-denying-reconciling

• Law of Seven (Heptaparaparshinokh)

• Humans are Three-Brained Beings (the mind, the body and the emotions)

• Humans are asleep, and need to awaken and grow a Soul (Kesdjan Body)

• Those with no soul become food for the Moon

• Teaching methods: writings, music, physical labour, inner exercises, and sacred dances.

The Sacred Dances or Movements

• ‘In the strictly defined movements and combinations of the dancers, certain laws are visually reproduced which are intelligible to those who know them … I have many times witnessed such dances being performed during sacred services in various ancient temples’ (Ouspensky 1977 [1947]: 16).

• ‘The Movements are dances and exercises characterised by unusual and symbolic gestures of the body. They often require participants to carry out a series of gestures in unpredictable sequences, and sometimes involve counting in unusual patterns, or the repeating of phrases or words in different languages, such as Russian, Greek, Latin, French, Tibetan, and English. The goal is to highlight and challenge the body’s mechanical nature, promoting “self-remembering” ’ (Petsche 2016).

• The three ‘mechanical’ ‘centres’ of the individual are closely bound to each other, so one’s mechanical forms of moving can be altered through Movements, further bringing about changes in one’s forms of thinking and feeling (Ouspensky 1977 [1947]: 352-353).

• ‘The specific origins or inspiration for Gurdjieff’s Movements are unknown. In an advertisement for Gurdjieff’s Paris Movements demonstrations of 1923 he claimed that they came from particular monasteries in Asia (Blom 2006: 105). These monasteries have never been located, and no Central Asian geographer or anthropologist has reported any dances structured like the Movements (Moore 1991: 351; Webb 1980: 41-42; Bennen 1973: 105-106). In any case, pupils’ accounts emphasise the spontaneous, improvisatory nature of Gurdjieff’s Movements classes, and reveal that Gurdjieff sometimes returned to previously given Movements to make changes or add new elements’ (Petsche 2016).

Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950)

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• Emile Jaques-Dalcroze was born in Vienna and became Professor of Harmony at the Geneva Conservatorium of Music. He pioneered Eurhythmics to primary school children in 1905. Eurhythmics was the first part of his three part system (the other two were solfège and improvisation).

• ‘From 1910 to 1914 he directed the Bildungsanstalt Jaques-Dalcroze, a training college built to support his work at Hellerau near Dresden, Germany … which offered solfège (ear training), rhythmic gymnastics, keyboard improvisation, plastique (advanced music-movement study), music theory and practice, Swedish gymnastics, dance, and anatomy. During World War I Jaques- Dalcroze established his own school in Geneva, the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, where he taught until shortly before his death on July 1, 1950’ (see hnp://biography.yourdicLonary.com/emilejaques- dalcroze#sgSS06Dg4yfyB2DV.99).

The Dalcroze Method

• ‘ “Rhythmic gymnastics,” as Jaques-Dalcroze called his special movement work, offered many new ways to move and make music with the original instrument, the human body. Working from the basics of singing, breathing, walking, and beating time, Jaques-Dalcroze and his early students eventually explored more adventurous possibilities of connecting music and movement. Lunging, skipping, pulling a partner, carrying an imaginary weight, making a cannon—these called for timing, strength, greater use of the body in space, imagination, awareness of form, and/or cooperation with other people. Many exercises in the method were based on walking, which Jaques- Dalcroze took to be the natural breakdown of time into equal parts. For example, students might be told to walk around the room following the music which he would improvise at the keyboard, responding directly to the beat and to changes in speed and dynamics. Students would thus become aware of how they had to adjust the length of their steps and how they needed to control their use of energy and body weight. Other typical activities included quick reactions such as starting or stopping on command and walking twice as fast or twice as slow. Another basic practice was the walking or stepping out of rhythmic patterns. The teacher would play a musical example. After listening carefully, the students would immediately repeat it, matching their steps exactly to the sequence of short and long notes they perceived. Work to develop the sense of measure or bartime was developed from the standard arm gestures of conducting. Experienced students could beat regular bartime with their arms while simultaneously stepping rhythmic patterns. Breathing was understood by Jaques-Dalcroze to be a natural source of dynamics and phrasing. He created many exercises to help students feel how they could shape the flow and energy of breathing. Ideas to encourage the sense of phrasing also included contrasting light and heavy steps, using a real or imagined resistance such as stretching an elastic, or taking turns moving with a partner or in groups. This work led to "realizations" of more complex forms such as inventions, fugues, and rondos. Sometimes students even created "plastic counterpoint," or movement independent of, but related to, its music” (see http://biography.yourdictionary.com/emi ... QqQyREY.99).

Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958)

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• Rudolf von Laban was born in Bratislava and developed a system of dance notation (Labanotation or Kinetography). He also pioneered ‘movement choir’, based on his spiritual beliefs, which were derived from Theosophy, Sufism, and Hermeticism.

Laban’s Philosophy

• ‘The etymological roots of this Greek term, “choreosophy,” consist of two parts: “choreo,” meaning a stage or space for dancing, and “sophia,” meaning wisdom. Choreosophy may thus be defined as the “teaching of the knowledge of space,” particularly the knowledge of the space of dance. As a philosophy— and Laban wanted his choreosophy to be understood as such—Laban’s system assumes the right to pose questions concerning the meaning of life, the origins of thinking and being, the essence of the world, and mankind’s place in the universe’ (Dorr 2003: 8).

• ‘Laban’s mass dance groups, consisting most often of twenty to one hundred people but sometimes with as many as a thousand, were therefore meant not only to encourage artistic expression and a feeling for movement, but also to build a mystical collective. The simplicity of their underlying plan distinguished the group dances from his abstract, symphonic dance dramas for professional dancers. The choral exercises were marked by a cultic plot in which ecstasy and complete submission to the collective’s overall movements were demanded. Although the interaction between the leader and the group was essentially improvisational, this improvisation never disrupted the strict hierarchy’ (Dorr 2003: 19).

The Conservative Revolution consciously counterposes the "rebirths" of the cyclical world-view to the "Renaissance." According to Mohler, "sunken worlds" well up from below, revealing ancient regional mythologies -- the principle of the Great Mother Earth, which transmits the collective's identity with blood and soil. Accordingly, men can come in closest contact with their "souls" when they are in the throes of a dionysian frenzy.

Nietzsche elevated the "dionysian" into a program to defeat Socratic reason. The essence of the dionysian could be most easily captured while in a state of intoxication, e.g., while under the influence of narcotic beverages, or in the ecstatic abandon with which the dionysian masses dance through the streets -- be they the dancers of St. Vitus in the Middle Ages, the marching columns of the SA or SS; or behind the prayer-wheels of the Islamic fundamentalists. "When millions fall trembling in the dust; we are close to the dionysian," wrote Nietzsche. It is all too clear that the individual -- this greatest treasure of European culture -- played a role here as a mere part of a collective mass. Contempt for the individual in favor of the collectivity, is one of the touchstones of the Nazi-Communist alliance.

In contrast with classical art, what passes for art in the camp of the Conservative Revolution was never intended to ennoble the public, "playfully and merrily" bringing them up to the poet's level, as Schiller put it. Esthetic refinement of the emotions; joy in differentiated content within the perfected shape and form which art has as its aim; the ability to address the potentially finer side of popular impulses -- no, the Conservative Revolution will have none of this. Their art is intended to allow the public to "go outside themselves," to drain themselves, to participate in a collective frenzy. Whatever one's inner beast might be, it should be let out in existentialist exhibitionism; the so-called lyrics of Gottfried Benn or the prose of Hermann Hesse invites us to do so. Dostoevsky's "Russian soul" is only completely genuine when the hero, a drunkard and a brute, maniacally smashes everything to bits, including his tubercular wife.

The Conservative Revolution's art is an assault against reason, as is perhaps best demonstrated by the music of Richard Wagner. The public is lulled into entering the cultist world of mythology. The opera is visited not in order to experience joy over human creativity as exemplified by music, but to observe and participate in a cult ritual.

-- The Hitler Book, edited by Helga Zepp-LaRouche


Laban admired Nietzsche was a member of the OTO, collaborated with Nazis, moved to Ascona in 1913, practiced nudism, free love, and cultivated ecstasy to break open conventions and establish harmony with nature.

Steiner and Anthroposophy

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• Anthroposophy means “the wisdom of man,” and is therefore explicitly contrasted with Theosophy, “the wisdom of God.”

• Steiner continued to use Theosophical concepts, including: the notions that human beings have an etheric body beyond the physical, and an astral body beyond the etheric; the existence of higher beings, karma and reincarnation, and the unity of religion and science.

• Anthroposophy understands all within the physical world to be evolving into higher forms, and in humans the development of spiritual senses enables the “digestion” of experiences by the soul. With this digestion certain cosmological realizations are possible.

Steiner’s Teaching on the Body

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Magdalene Siegloch
Lory Maier-Smiths
Die erste Eurythmistin und die Anfange der Eurythmie

[Google translate: Magdalene victory hole: Lory Maier-Smiths, The first eurythmist and the beginning of eurythmy


• Becoming ‘human’ involved for Steiner the realization that the human was a microcosm of the macrocosmic cosmos. A consequence of this is that the human being is the model for everything, the system that offers the key to all other systems. In 1911, Steiner wrote a poem for Marie von Sivers: ‘Shaping the world in the self/ Seeing the self in the world/ Is the breath of the soul’ (Steiner and Steiner-Von Sivers 1988: 121).

• The centrality of Christ in Anthroposophy follows from this teaching, and Steiner’s teaching contained many examples of this ‘fractal’ structure, in which each component is broken down into components that are smaller models of the whole. The layering of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego is similar, though the underlying principle is not one of size but spiritual development (King 1987 [1986]: 360).

Steiner’s Teaching on the Body 3

• In art, as in spiritual exercises and ‘authentic’ life experiences, humans were enabled to be truly themselves. Therefore Steiner paid close attention to the body, teaching on food and diet, clothing and costume, and art forms that partook of bodily experience."

• The movement art of Eurythmy shared certain qualities with his Mystery Plays, in that both art forms were externalisations of ‘innermost laws’ that were perceived through bodily actions. The first Eurythmy classes were taught in 1912 and by 1919 two courses of training had been developed and Steiner’s Eurythmists had toured Europe giving public demonstrations. Marie von Sivers and Lory Smits, an early teacher of the art, contributed significantly to its development."

Peter Deunov and Paneurhythmy

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‘Paneurhythmic exercises are exact number (28 exercises or paneurhythmic forms) always played in the open air and always starting from spring (22 March for people living in the North Hemisphere/ 22 September for the people living in the South Hemisphere) and ending at the beginning of autumn (22 September/ 22 March). Special attention is given to the Sun. Paneurhythmy is divine and nobody can change its exercises and figures’ (Peneva 2013: 281).

The Meaning of Paneurhythmy

‘Paneurhythmy is a science of the harmonious, conscious movements. It has three parts: a cycle of 28 exercises, a cycle titled “Rays of the Sun”, and a cycle titled “Pentagram”. All of them take about an hour to complete. Paneurhythmy is danced in pairs forming a circle – there may be more than one concentric circle if necessary. One person of the pair represents the masculine principle; the other one represents the feminine principle. The musicians stay in the center of the circle’ (Peneva 2013: 282).

• ‘The main idea is the idea of God, the Supreme Intelligence. In the Paneurhythmy exercises the physical, spiritual and divine worlds are interrelated. The thought should be in arms and legs, in all cells of the body, so that thought and feelings should participate in every movement and penetrate every cell’ (Peneva 2013: 282).

• Paneurhythmy is ‘a form of ritual dance mixed with meditation, visualisation and poetry recitation that was supposed to tune the performer into the rhythm of nature’ (Anczyk 2015: 16)


Paneurhythmy at Rila Mountain, Bulgaria

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Deunov on Human Fulfillment

‘P. Deunov (Beinsa Douno) laid the foundations of holistic medicine in Bulgaria and provides a key concept of man as a trinity of spirit, soul, and body. In general lectures (1941) Deunov teaches his followers that happiness and health are natural conditions. Happiness is achieved by inner purity, light of the mind and warmth of the heart. Basic concepts in the study of happiness are: love, moderation, light (knowledge and wisdom), thankfulness [13, 14]. Deunov creates Paneurhythmy (movement and thought - in harmonious whole) which gathers followers around the world every year after in the incredible beauty of the Seven Lakes of Rila mountain, Bulgaria’ (Popova 2013: 257).

The Ballet Russes’ Le Sacre du Printemps (1913)

• The final possible influence on the Movements noted in this article is the Paris debut of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes’ The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky with a score by Igor Stravinsky, in 1913.



It is argued that body-based disciplines introduced by occult teachers with Theosophically-derived systems, are a significant phenomenon in the early twentieth century, and that Gurdjieff’s sacred dances, though distinct to Eurythmy and others, emerged in the same melting pot and manifest common features and themes with the systems of Steiner, Jaques-Dalcroze, Laban, Deunov, and others.

Primitive Ritual, Percussive Music

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• ‘The Rite, subtitled "Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts", begins with primitive rituals celebrating spring, and ends with a young sacrificial victim dancing herself to death … The Rite opened with an introductory melody adapted from a Lithuanian folk song, featuring a bassoon playing, unusually, at the top of its register, and prompting composer Camille Saint-Saëns to exclaim: “If that's a bassoon, then I'm a baboon!” The heavy, stomping steps were a world away from the elegance of traditional ballet, as the dancers enacted the brutal plot … The reviews were merciless. "The work of a madman … sheer cacophony," wrote the composer Puccini. "A laborious and puerile barbarity," added Le Figaro's critic, Henri Quinard. It was 29 May 1913. Classical music would never be the same again’ (Kim Willsher, ‘Rite that Caused Riots: Celebrating 100 Years of The Rite of Spring’, The Guardian, 27 May, 2013, at https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ 2013/may/27/rite-of-spring-100-yearsstravinsky.

Some Conclusions 1

Gurdjieff, jaques-Dalcroze, and Deunov are exact contemporaries, Laban a little younger, and Steiner died young.

• Jacques-Dalcroze is the odd one out as he’s not an esoterist and The Rite of Spring is an art work that was not designed as an esoteric work (though it could be read as such).

• Devotees of Eurythmy, Movements, and Paneurhythmy all insist they are unrelated, separate, and (usually) that the esoteric spiritual movement art that they practice is ‘true’ and the others are in some sense sham, false.

• All are (broadly) cosmological in nature and aim to bring about the spiritual evolution of practitioners.

• It is known that Gurdjieff and Jaques-Dalcroze were introduced by Jeanne de Salzmann and that before he settled in France and established the Institute for the Harmonious Development at the Prieuré des Basses Loges ff had discussed purchasing Jaques-Dalcroze’s property at Hellerau.


Some Conclusions 2

Jaques-Dalcroze is first, 1905. Of the esoteric systems Steiner is first (Eurythmy is developed in 1912, and tours post-World War I Europe in 1919).

• Gurdjieff teaches first Movements in 1919, though he has been talking about ‘sacred dances’ since his emergence as a teacher in 1912-1913.

• Laban has developed his ideas regarding dance (‘Movement Choir’) by the time he moves to Ascona in 1913, and The Rite of Spring premieres in 1913.

• Deunov develops Paneurythmy in the 1920s, so that is definitely the latest form of esoteric dancing.

________________

References:

• A. Anczyk (2015) ‘Mages of the Isles: Some Remarks on the Esoteric Inspirations in British Druidry’, The Polish Journal of Arts and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 9-22.

• J. G. Bennett (1973) Gurdjieff: Making a New World. London and New York: Harper & Row.

• G.-J. Blom (2006) Oriental Suite: The Complete Orchestral Music 1923-1924. The Netherlands: Basta Audio Visuals.

• E. Dorr (2003) ‘Rudolf von Laban: The “Founding Father” of Expressionist Dance’, Dance Chronicle, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 1-29.

• J. Moore (1991) Gurdjieff: Anatomy of a Myth. A Biography. Shamesbury: Element.

• P. D. Ouspensky (1977 [1947]) In Search of the Miraculous: The Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff, San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt Inc.

• B. Peneva (2013) ‘Paneurhythmy and Eurhythmy: Philosophy and Practice’, in Miladin Jovanovic and Dorde Nicin (eds), Zbornik Radova Proceedings, Panevropski Univerzitet: Apeirion, pp. 279-285.

• J. J. M. Petsche (2016) ‘The Sacred Dance of the Enneagram: The History and Meanings Behind G. I. Gurdjieff’s Enneagram Movements’, Fieldwork in Religion (forthcoming).

• S. G. Popova (2013) ‘What Makes People Happy? Why is Happiness a Global Interest in 21st Century?’ Global Virtue Conference, pp. 255-260.

• R. Steiner and Steiner-von Sivers, M. (1988) Correspondence and Documents:1901-1925. Trans. C. and I. von Arnim. London and New York: Rudolf Steiner Press and Anthroposophical Press.

• J. Webb (1980) The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers. London: Thames & Hudson.

• K. Willsher, ‘‘Rite that Caused Riots: Celebrating 100 Years of The Rite of Spring’, The Guardian, 27 May, 2013, at https://www.theguardian.com/culture/201 ... stravinsky.
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Re: Eurythmy, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:53 am

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man [EXCERPT]
by G.I. Gurdjieff

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"You see, my boy, what coincidences occur in our Great Universe. This etherogram refers to your favorites in connection with the 'ape-beings' I just mentioned. It was sent to me from Mars and informs me, among other things, that the three-centered beings of the planet Earth are once more troubled by the 'ape question.'

"I must first tell you that on account of their abnormal being-existence, there was long ago crystallized and there is periodically intensified in the presence of those peculiar three-brained beings arising and existing on the planet Earth a strange factor, producing from time to time a 'crescendo impulse,' under the action of which they wish to find out at any cost whether they have descended from these apes or the apes have descended from them.

"Judging from the etherogram, this time the question is agitating chiefly the biped beings who breed on the continent called 'America. '

"Although this question always troubles them somewhat, every once in a while it becomes for a long time, as they express it, the 'burning question of the day. '

"I remember very well that this 'agitation of mind' over the origin of the apes occurred among them for the first time when their 'center of culture,' as they also like to express it, was the country of Tikliamish The starting point of this 'agitation of mind' was the wiseacring of a certain 'learned being of new formation' named Menitkel.

"This Menitkel became a learned being because, in the first place, his childless aunt was an excellent 'matchmaker,' and mixed a great deal with 'power-possessing beings', and because, in the second place, at the age when he was on the threshold of being a responsible being he was given as a birthday present a book entitled Manual of Bon Ton and Love-Letter Writing. As he was financially secure and therefore quite free, thanks to an inheritance from his uncle, a former pawnbroker, he compiled, out of boredom, a massive and erudite work about the origin of these apes, in which he 'cooked up' an elaborate theory supported by all kinds of 'logical proof,' but of course such 'logical proof as can be conceived and crystallized only in the Reason of those freaks who have taken your fancy.

"This Menitkel then 'proved' by his theory that their 'fellow countrymen,' the apes, were descended from none other than people who had, as they say, 'gone wild ' The other terrestrial beings of that period, as had already become proper to them, believed implicitly this Auntie's darling, without any 'essence-criticism' whatsoever, and from that time on this question, agitating the strange 'Reason' of your favorites, became the subject of disputes and fantasies, right up until what is called the seventh 'great planetary process of reciprocal destruction.'

"Thanks to this maleficent idea there was fixed in the instincts of most of the unfortunates of that period another abnormal so-called 'dictatorial factor,' which began to engender in their common presence the false feeling that these ape-beings were sacred. And this factor, which engendered such a sacrilegious impulse, passed by heredity from generation to generation and reached the instincts of many beings even of the present time.

"As for the false notion cooked up by that 'pawnshop progeny,' it held its ground for nearly two of their centuries and became an integral part of the 'Reason' of most of them. But due to various events growing out of the seventh planetary process of reciprocal destruction, which lasted nearly half a century, it gradually faded away and completely disappeared from their common presence.

"But when their so-called 'cultured existence' became concentrated on the continent of 'Europe,' and when the time again came around for that peculiar disease known as 'wiseacring' to manifest itself with maximum intensity—for this disease, by the way, had long before become subject to the fundamental cosmic law of Heptaparaparshinokh, according to which its intensity had to fluctuate with a certain periodicity—then, to the grief of three-brained beings of the whole Universe, that 'ape question,' or 'who is descended from whom,' once more arose and having become crystallized again became part of the abnormal 'Reason' of your favorites.

"In this instance also, the 'ape question' arose from the stimulus given by a learned being, of course again a 'great' one, but of an altogether 'new formation,' by the name of Darwin. This 'great' scientist, basing his theory on that same logic of theirs, set about 'proving' exactly the opposite of what Menitkel had said, that is, he 'proved' that it was they themselves who were descended from these Mister Apes.

"As for the objective reality of either of the theories of these 'great' terrestrial learned beings, I am reminded of one of the wise sayings of our esteemed Mullah Nasr Eddin:

"'Luck smiled on them both, for they both managed to find the authentic godmother of the incomparable Scheherazade on an old dunghill.'

"In any case, bear in mind that for many centuries this question, among others just as ephemeral, has provided material for the kind of thinking your favorites consider the 'highest manifestation of Reason.'

"In my opinion your favorites could get a correct answer to this question that always agitates them of how the apes arose, if only they really knew how to apply another of the maxims of our dear Mullah Nasr Eddin, who often used to say:

'The cause of every misunderstanding must be sought in woman. '

"If they had made use of this wise maxim to resolve their enigmatic question perhaps they would have finally discovered the origin of these fellow countrymen of theirs.

"As the subject of the genealogy of these apes is indeed exceedingly complicated and unusual, I shall inform your Reason about it from every possible aspect.

"The fact is that neither are your favorites descended from apes nor are apes descended from them, but the cause of the arising of these apes is in this case—as in every other misunderstanding there—their women.

"First of all I must tell you that none of those terrestrial ape-beings now arising there in various exterior forms ever existed before the second 'transapalnian perturbation', it was only after this disaster that the genealogy of their species began.

"The cause of the arising of these 'misconceived' beings —as well as that of all events more or less serious in the objective sense that occur on the surface of that ill-fated planet—stemmed from two sources totally independent of each other.

"The first, as always, was the same lack of foresight on the part of certain Most High, Most Saintly Cosmic Individuals, and the second was, once again, those abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by your favorites themselves.

"The point is that during the second transapalnian perturbation, besides the chief continent of Atlantis many other large and small land masses entered within the planet, and new land masses appeared in their place These displacements of various parts of the common presence of this unfortunate planet lasted several of their days, accompanied by frequent planetary tremors and manifestations that could not fail to evoke terror in the consciousness and feelings of beings of every kind.

"During that period many of your three-brained favorites who, together with one-brained and two-brained beings of other forms, had chanced to survive unexpectedly found themselves upon other newly formed land masses in places that were entirely unfamiliar to them It was just then that many of these strange 'keschapmartnian' three-brained beings of active and passive sex or, as they say, 'men' and 'women,' were compelled for a number of their years to exist apart, that is to say, without the opposite sex.

"Before continuing to relate how all this occurred, I must tell you in a little more detail about that sacred substance which is the final result of the evolving transformations of every kind of being-food and is formed in the presence of every being without distinction of 'brain system ' This sacred substance, elaborated in the presence of beings of every kind, is almost everywhere called 'exioëhary,' but your favorites on the planet Earth call it 'sperm. '

"Through the all-gracious foresight and command of our Common Father Creator and according to the actualization of Great Nature, this sacred substance arises in the presence of all beings, without distinction of brain system or exterior coating, in order that by its means they may consciously or automatically fulfill that part of their being-duty which consists in the continuation of their species But in the presence of three-brained beings it also arises in order that they may consciously transform it for coating their higher being-bodies for their own being.

"Before the second transapalnian perturbation there, which the contemporary three-brained beings refer to as the 'loss of the continent of Atlantis,' in the period when various consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer had already begun to be crystallized in their presence, a being-impulse was gradually formed in them which later became predominant.

"This impulse is now called 'pleasure', and in order to satisfy it they were already beginning to exist in a manner unbecoming to three-centered beings, that is to say, most of them gradually began to remove this sacred being-substance from themselves for the satisfaction of this impulse alone.

"Well, my boy, from then on most of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth were not content to carry out the process of the removal of this substance, which is continuously elaborated in them, only at those periods normally established by Great Nature for beings in accordance with their organization, for the purpose of the continuation of their species Owing to this, and also to the fact that most of them had ceased to utilize this substance consciously for coating their higher being-bodies, it came about that when they did not remove it from themselves in ways that by then had become mechanical, they naturally experienced a sensation called 'sirklinimana,' a state they describe as 'feeling out of sorts,' and which is invariably accompanied by what is called 'mechanical suffering.'

"Remind me at some opportune moment about those periods fixed by Nature for the normal process of the utilization of the exioëhary by beings of different brain-systems for the continuation of their species, and I shall explain this to you in detail.

"Well then, they like ourselves are only 'keschapmartnian' beings, and when this sacred substance, continuously and inevitably formed in them, is utilized normally for the continuation of their species by means of the sacred process 'elmooarno,' its removal from their presences must be accomplished exclusively with the opposite sex. But these three-brained beings who by chance had escaped disaster were no longer in the habit of utilizing this substance for coating their higher being-bodies and, as they were already existing in a manner unbecoming to three-brained beings, when they were obliged to exist for several of their years without beings of the opposite sex, they turned to various antinatural means for the removal from themselves of this sacred substance, exioëhary.

"The beings of the male sex had recourse to the antinatural means called 'moordoorten' and 'androperasty' or, as the contemporary beings would say, 'onanism' and 'pederasty,' and these antinatural means fully satisfied them.

"But for the three-brained beings of the 'passive sex' or, as they call them, 'women,' these antinatural means were not sufficiently satisfying, and so the poor 'women-orphans' of that time, already more cunning and inventive than the men, began to seek out beings of other forms and accustom them to be their 'partners.' Well then, it was after these 'partnerships' that there began to appear in our Great Universe those species of beings which, as our dear Mullah Nasr Eddin would say, are 'neither fish nor fowl.'

"As regards the possibility of this abnormal blending of two different kinds of exioëhary for the conception and formation of a new planetary body of a being, it is necessary to give you the following explanation:

"On the planet Earth, as on other planets of our Universe where 'keschapmartnian' beings breed and exist—that is, three-brained beings in whom the formation of the sacred exioëhary for the creation of a new being must take place exclusively in the presences of two beings of distinct, independent sexes—the fundamental difference between the sacred exioëhary formed in the presences of beings of opposite sexes, that is, in men and women, consists in this, that in the exioëhary formed in the presences of beings of the male sex, the localized 'holy affirming' or 'positive' force of the sacred Triamazikamno participates, while in the exioëhary formed in beings of the female sex there participates the localized 'holy denying' or 'negative' force of the same sacred law.

"Thanks to the all-gracious foresight and command of our Father of everything existing in the Universe, and in accordance with the actualizing power of Great Mother Nature, in certain surrounding conditions and with the participation of the third separately localized holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno, namely, with the 'holy reconciling' force, the blending of the exioëhary formed in two separate beings of distinct, independent sexes during the process of the sacred 'elmooarno' taking place between them brings about the arising of a new being.

"In the case I was speaking of, the abnormal blending of two heterogeneous kinds of exioëhary was possible only by virtue of a certain cosmic law known as the 'affinity of the numbers of the totality of vibrations,' which began to act owing to the second transapalnian perturbation on this ill-fated planet, and which then still continued to act on its common presence.

"Concerning this cosmic law, it is important to tell you that it arose and began to exist in the Universe after the fundamental sacred law of Triamazikamno had been modified by our Creator in order to render the Heropass harmless, and after its holy parts, until then entirely independent, had become dependent upon forces from outside. But, my boy, you will understand this cosmic law in all its aspects only when I shall explain in detail, as I have promised you, all the fundamental laws of world-creation and world-existence.

"Meanwhile, you should know that on normally existing planets anywhere in our Great Universe the exioëhary formed in the presence of a three-brained being having organs of perception and transformation for localizing the 'holy affirming' force of the sacred Triamazikamno, in other words, the exioëhary formed in a three-brained keschapmartnian being of the 'male' sex, can never be blended— owing to that same law—with the exioëhary formed in the presence of a two-brained keschapmartnian being of the opposite sex.

"On the other hand, when a special combination of cosmic forces occurs and this same law of the 'affinity of the numbers of the totality of vibrations' begins to act, the exioëhary formed in a three-brained keschapmartnian being of the 'female' sex can sometimes, in certain surrounding conditions, blend quite well with the exioëhary formed in two-brained keschapmartnian beings of the male sex, but only as the active factor in the actualizing process of the fundamental sacred Triamazikamno.

"In short, during those terrible years on that planet of yours, a phenomenon very rare in the Universe appeared, that is, a blending of the exioëhary of two keschapmartnian beings of different brain systems and of opposite sexes, and the result was the arising of the ancestors of these terrestrial 'misconceived' beings now called 'apes,' who give your favorites no peace, and from time to time so agitate their strange Reason.

"But when this terrible period was over, a relatively normal process of ordinary existence was reestablished on your planet, and your favorites of different sexes again began to find each other and exist together, and thereafter those 'ape-beings' actualized the continuation of their species among themselves.

"And this continuation of their species was possible because the conception for the arising of the first of these abnormal beings had taken place according to the same external conditions that in general determine the presences of future keschapmartnian beings of active or passive sex.

"The most interesting result of this highly abnormal manifestation of the three-brained beings of your planet is that there now exist a great many species of the descendants of these ape-beings, differing in exterior form, and each of these different species bears a striking resemblance to some form of two-brained quadruped being still in existence there.

"This came about because the blending of the exioëhary of the keschapmartnian three-brained beings of the female sex, which brought about the arising of the ancestors of those apes, proceeded with the active exioëhary of the various species of quadruped beings that exist there even until today.

"Indeed, my boy, during my last personal stay on the planet Earth, when I happened in the course of my travels to come across the various species of apes and, in accordance with a habit that has become second nature, I observed them, I ascertained definitely that the whole of their outer functioning and the so-called 'automatic postures' of each 'species' of these contemporary apes are exactly like those in the common presence of certain normally arisen quadruped beings there, and their 'facial features' are even exactly the same as those of particular quadrupeds As for the 'psychic features' of all the different species of these apes, they are absolutely identical, even down to minute details, with those of the psyche of the three-brained beings of the 'female sex' there. "

At this point in his tales Beelzebub became silent. After a long pause he looked at his favorite Hassein with a smile that clearly expressed a double meaning.
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