The Movement of the WORD
Foundation Work in Speech, Poetry, Music, Eurythmy and Shakespeare’s Pentameter
The Writings of Kate Reese Hurd
Photo: Marc Clifton
From the Gospel of St. John
In the Beginning was the Word,
the Logos
William Tyndale’s translation
Tyndale was the first translator of the Bible into English (1534). The King James version of the Bible is in great measure based upon his rendering of the verses.
In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God,
and the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by it,
and without it, was made nothing, that was made.
In it was life, and the life was the light of men,
and the light shineth in the darkness,
but the darkness comprehended it not.
Here is the Greek with a line-by-line translation of these verses: InTheBeginning,John,Chapter1,Verses1-5,pdf
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ORIENTATION
How this Work and these Writings Came About
The Real Sound Must Be Experienced
The Eurythmy Meditation
The Mysteries of Sound Creation
The Experience Governs the Artistic Technique
The Onlooker Perceives the Eurythmist’s Experience
The Formative-Structure, the ‘Gebilde’
What Writings and Images are Here: Two Web Pages
How this Work and these Writings Came About
Realizing that the gesture-expressions for poetry and music that are typically passed down for use in eurythmy-movement through imitation and mental imagery* cannot form the basis of her own practice and sharing of eurythmy, in late 2012 Kate Reese Hurd began to seek an inwardly-verifiable foundation for her work. This she did by going back to what Rudolf Steiner – the seer, philosopher, writer, scientist, educator and artist who brought so many new impulses into our earthly life and work – had presented to the first eurythmists between 1912 and 1924.
Since 2014, Kate has been publishing articles and in-depth reports on the origin and basis of the art of eurythmy, an art of movement which aims to express the WORD as it reveals itself In speech, poetry and music. She is a graduate of the four-year program in both speech eurythmy and music eurythmy at the Spring Valley School of Eurythmy in Chestnut Ridge NY. She also has a background in music performance and holds degrees in music and English literature.
The earliest records of what Rudolf Steiner indicated for this new art are a treasure trove of insight and fresh impulses. These are absolutely essential now, in order to carry eurythmy into its second century of development. Why essential? She believes that the increasingly-evident incorporation of subjective dance-like choreography and mime in eurythmy expression must now be understood, and a concerted effort made to cast off these practices if the art is to mature as a truthful, strong and healthy expression of the WORD.
* In Kate’s article, “Imitation and Mental Imagery in Eurythmy: a Century-Long Detour,” she discusses the origin of this long tradition of handing down inherited gestures and opens a new path that begins with the speech sounds themselves:
Imitation,Imagery,Detour,’22,KRH,110224,pdf.
“Beginning With B in Light of Goethe’s Sensible-Supersensible Process,” brings forward the source of eurythmy and the difference between it and dance and mime, and shows how she works with the gesture-impulse of B, to find it ‘from within’:
BeginningB,Goethe’sProcess,’17,KRH,091624,pdf.
And her article, “Eurythmy as a Critical Art: What This Means for Its Future,” unfolds a discussion of the philosophical grounding which eurythmy needs to have in order to be raised to the level of what Rudolf Steiner called a ‘critical art’ that no longer follows artistic impulses in a naive manner:
EurythmyAsCriticalArt,KRH,’16,091624,pdf.
The Real Sound Must be Experienced
In 1924 toward the end of his life, Rudolf Steiner made a very strong statement about eurythmy expression near the opening of Lecture 1 in his lecture cycle on Eurythmy as Visible Singing (GA 279). Music eurythmy had begun in 1915 and speech eurythmy had begun three years earlier, in 1912, both being developed on the basis of his ‘indications’ for them:
“Here [in eurythmy as visible singing, visible music], however, it is above all things necessary that bare gesture-making and movement-production in eurythmy be transcended/gotten past; that within the sphere of eurythmy – also in speech eurythmy – the real sound will in fact be felt-sensed-perceived.”
The original in German: “Da ist aber vor allen Dingen notwendig, dass über das bloße Gebärde-Machen und Bewegung-Erzeugen in der Eurythmie hinausgegangen werde, dass tatsächlich innerhalb des Eurythmyischen – auch in der Lauteurythmie – der wirkliche Laut empfunden werde.”
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The question that is being addressed in the articles and reports on the Writings page of this website is:
HOW are we “in fact” to feel-sense-perceive the “real sounds” in music and in speech – the formative-structural movements of the Logos – which we seek to present as poetic speech and as eurythmy and in the expression of Shakespeare’s blank verse pentameter?
We may begin with the help of
The Eurythmy Meditation
The Eurythmy Meditation
by Rudolf Steiner
I seek within
The Working of Creative Forces,
The Living of Creative Powers.
It tells me
Of Earth’s Might of Weight
Through the word of my feet,
It tells me
Of Air’s Forces of Form
Through the singing of my hands,
It tells me
Of Heaven’s Power of Light
Through the sensing of my head,
How the World in MAN* [the human being] Speaks, sings, senses.
The original in German:
Ich suche im Innern
Der schaffenden Kräfte Wirken,
Der schaffenden Mächte Leben.
Es sagt mir
Der Erde Schweremacht
Durch meiner Füsse Wort,
Es sagt mir
Der Lüfte Formgewalt
Durch meiner Hände Singen,
Es sagt mir
Des Himmels Lichteskraft
Durch meines Hauptes Sinnen,
Wie die Welt im Menschen*
Spricht, singt, sinnt.
*(In all of Rudolf Steiner’s work, MAN refers to all human beings.)
This English translation is by Kate Reese Hurd.
Note: Rudolf Steiner introduced this meditation on July 11, 1924 at the end of his fourteenth lecture on Eurythmy as Visible Speech, given in Dornach, Switzerland. You may read what he said here: EurythmyMeditation,RSteiner,092924,pdf
The Mysteries of Sound-Creation are the Foundation of Eurythmy as Visible Speech
In Rudolf Steiner’s July 1924 report about the lectures he had just given on eurythmy as visible speech, he pointed to speech itself as the source and starting place for work in this new art:
“Whoever wishes to do eurythmy must have penetrated into the being of speech-formation. He must, before all, have approached the mysteries of sound-creation.”
This necessity applies likewise to music-creation and its expression through eurythmy movement.
(See his July 20, 1924 “News Sheet” report. It is usually included at the front of Eurythmy as Visible Speech, GA 279.)
And in one of his many introductions to eurythmy presentations, Rudolf Steiner pointed out:
” If someone were able to see what the larynx, lungs, tongue, palates and lips are really doing, and what the air is really doing during speech, they would say that when we are speaking, beautifully artistic movements are made by all of us, especially during artistic recitation.”
(See his May 6, 1919 introduction in the collection, An Introduction to Eurythmy, Anthroposophic Press, 1984.)
The Experience That is to Come to Expression Governs the Artistic Technique
From Rudolf Steiner’s report for the “News Sheet,” July 20, 1924, concerning his lectures on Eurythmy as Visible Speech (GA 278). This report is included with the published lectures:
“The eurythmist must devote themself to the gesture down to the smallest detail, so that their performance really becomes the self-understood expression of the life of soul. They can only give form to the gesture in its fullness when the smallest detail comes first to consciousness, that it may later become the habitual expression of the soul-being.”
“… From eurythmy one can learn to value the technique of art; but from eurythmy one can indeed also become deeply imbued with the way in which the technical must put aside everything external and be completely taken hold of by the soul, if the truly artistic is to come to life. People who are active in any sphere of art often speak of how the soul must work behind the technique; the truth is that it is in the technique that the soul must work.”
The Onlooker Perceives
What the Eurythmist Experiences
And What Must That Experience Be?
It Must Be and Must Express the Formative-Structure
of the Music or the Poetic Speech, the ‘Gebilde’
Shortly into Lecture 1 of his 1924 lecture cycle, Eurythmy as Visible Singing, Rudolf Steiner made another very strong statement about eurythmy expression (in addition to the one above about surmounting gesture-making):
“The onlooker perceives in the eurythmy not only the bare movement or the gesture that the eurythmist presents, but actually perceives what the eurythmist feels and inwardly experiences. And for this, with this, it is necessary that in the act of eurythmy by the eurythmist [what]* is in fact experienced – is experienced above all things in the case of anything that is indeed to be presented – … is the formative-structure of speech in speech eurythmy; in music eurythmy, of course, the formative-structure of music.”
*In his spoken delivery, Rudolf Steiner delayed identifying the necessary content – the ‘what.’ This made it all the more emphatic when he named it: the ‘Gebilde.’
The original in German: “Der Zuschauer nimmt an der Eurythmie nicht etwa bloss die Bewegung oder die Geste wahr, die der Eurythmisierende darstellt, sondern der Zuschauer nimmt wirklich an der Eurythmie wahr, was der Eurythmisierende empfindet und innerlich erlebt. Und dazu ist notwendig, dass * tatsächlich im Eurythmisieren von dem Eurythmisierenden erlebt werde – erlebt werde vor allen Dingen dasjenige, was ja zur Darstellung kommen soll. Das ist in der Lauteurythmie das Lautgebilde, in der Toneurythmie aber das Tongebilde.
(Note: ‘act of eurythmy by the eurythmist’ is my rendering of “Eurythmisieren von dem Eurythmisierenden.”)
TWO WEB PAGES
Writings on
THE REVELATION OF THE WORD
Reports
In-depth discussions of HOW one can discover the gesture-expression of each of the speech sounds (the vowels and the consonants) as well as the steps of the musical scale (‘do-re-mi’) from within our own experiences. Included is a report on how this work also applies to the blank verse pentameter of Shakespeare.
Articles
Published articles that explore poetic speech and the practice of eurythmy movement-expression and its origin and foundation, also taking up questions concerning inner work and philosophical grounding.
Shorter Offerings
KEYS to markings for poetic texts, pieces of music and for Shakespeare’s pentameter. Short texts on poetic expression and preparatory work, plus other reference materials.
☆ At the end of the REVELATIONS page
are clickable lists for all of the document pdfs on that page.
Images of
THE SIEGE OF THE WORD
Display images
The SIEGE page was added in April 2025, after many months of intense work on the issue of the overwhelm of the Word by the escalation of radiation from wireless devices and infrastructure.
This sequence of images shows the destructive effects of these radiations on the creation-activity Word as it reveals itself in the harmoniously-organized forms of life on earth – as plants, animals, human beings and in biological processes. Enlarged as displays, these images arose in my work as a way to present the evidence from scientific studies to my village and town boards, to educate them and the public about the danger of continuing the rollout of wireless, microwave, radio-frequency, cellular infrastructures.
Now posted here, everyone is welcome to download and use these display images in presentations and link to them in their own work. The majority of them are also available in a small handout format.
☆ At the end of the SIEGE page
is a clickable list for all of the images,
documents and links on that page.
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