Rudolf Steiner’s “Eurythmy”: between originality and Zeitgeist
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Esther Berner [1]
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[1] Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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- Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 59, Nº. 6, 2023, págs. 1197-1215
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The Waldorf schools, founded by Rudolf Steiner, are today among the most successful alternative schools that have emerged in the context of the Reformpädagogik (progressive education movement). Despite the increasing number of schools being founded as well as critical comments occuring from time to time in the public, the interest in Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf pedagogy in terms of the history of education is currently rather modest. What is true with respect to research on Waldorf pedagogy in general is even more true of the “Eurythmy” as an essential element of Waldorf education. The aim of the article is to show to what extent Eurythmie is a genuinely Anthroposophical theory of body and movement and to what extent it is a child of the then flourishing Körperkultur movement. As will be shown, Rudolf Steiner got the idea to develop an original art of movement somewhat accidentally. Around and after the First World War it became an important vehicle for making his esoteric philosophy, the Anthroposophy, attractive to a wider public. On the one hand, he therefore had to demarcate Eurythmy from other schools and disciplines like rhythmic gymnastics and expressive dance; on the other hand, he had to catch up with relevant discourses associated with physical education like that of will training. As will also been shown, another strategy between demarcation and alignement, opening up to a wider public and establishing Eurythmy as a unique, anthrosophical art of movement, was to develop different forms of Eurythmy.
