A Conversation with Dorothea Mier, Advent 2011

Symphonic eurythmy

by Maria Ver Eecke

Maria is Editor of the Newsletter for the Eurythmy Association of North America.

When Dorothea Mier speaks of eurythmy, she offers living, gem-like images; each ideal has been thoroughly practiced and lived by her. Dorothea studied piano at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal College of Music, then received eurythmy training and taught for 17 years at the Lea van der Pals School in Dornach, Switzerland. From 1959 to 1980 she performed and toured with the Goetheanum Eurythmy Ensemble under Marie Savitch. In 1980 she was invited to lead the School of Eurythmy in Spring Valley, New York. With the Eurythmy Spring Valley Ensemble, she has toured all over the United States, Canada, and Europe. In 2005, Dorothea’s choreography of three movements from Antonin Dvořák’s New World Symphony was part of a symphonic eurythmy tour to sixteen cities in North America (see photos). Retired in 2006, she still brings her gifts to Eurythmy Spring Valley part-time, and teaches in diverse settings and countries.

Maria Ver Eecke: Dorothea, you have devoted your life to eurythmy and anthroposophy. Could you speak of eurythmy as an inner path of development?

Dorothea Mier: Through eurythmy, one comes to know oneself, and not just in movement. You practice with the whole of yourself, spirit, soul, and body. You, yourself, are the instrument, so everything you do, think, feel has an effect on this instrument. Eurythmy is inseparable from anthroposophy, so obviously the more you “live” anthroposophy, starting with the many exercises that Rudolf Steiner has given, the more expressive this instrument will become. In eurythmy, the physical body moves to the laws of the etheric which are guided by the soul-spirit. A good instrument does not get in the way, but will allow the speech or music to come across. The elements of speech and music are the bearers, the medium of the poets and composers. We need to penetrate these, to “become” them so as to “bring to life” in movement what the poet and composer wished to convey. Frank Lloyd Wright said, “If you wish to know the nature of a thing, you will find it in the thing.” When a concerned eurythmist asked Rudolf Steiner whether something would be too subjective, he answered that it cannot be subjective enough. The subjective aspect becomes objective through the fact of uniting oneself with the element [of speech or of music].

MVE: Could you speak of eurythmy in relation to the etheric?

DM: Eurythmy does not follow physical laws of measure, weight, and number, but the laws of levity. It is a “time” art, the movement between, as the present is between the past and future. The more this can be brought to expression, the richer it will be. Eurythmists do not tire because eurythmy raises the physical body to the laws of the etheric; and this is enlivening. An example of this is if you are out of breath after doing a quick piece – you have been moving too physically. In group forms it is important not only what each individual does, but what happens between the eurythmists, while in a solo, with the space around one.

MVE: That sounds like a conversation, as also between eurythmist and the speaker or musician. Can you speak to looking back on one hundred years of eurythmy?

Dorothea Mier

DM: I have realized that this isn’t just a looking back, but reading what Rudolf Steiner gave at the very beginning with today’s eyes and hearts. Recognizing all that was contained in the first indications can be an inspiration to penetrate them ever more deeply.

MVE: What changes have you seen over the years?

DM: Possibly the students are more open. They ask very different questions. Over the decades I have noticed an increase in wanting to understand what is being brought, which is on the one hand, very positive; but there is a danger that by having grasped something intellectually many feel that now they have it – which is far from the truth. Now the work begins to translate this experience into deed. There is much in eurythmy that is very hard to conceptualize; you learn a lot through just doing.

I have also noticed lately that there is greater interest to know more about the early eurythmists. And many who come to eurythmy now are more interested in how it will help their self-development and less with the question how they can serve the “being of eurythmy.” Another change is seen with those professional eurythmists who try to reinvent eurythmy or to merge it with other influences. At the end of the eight lectures Eurythmy as Visible Singing, Rudolf Steiner mentioned that “if instead of eight lectures I had given fourteen, I would have been concerned that the subject matter be properly assimilated.” All the musical elements had been addressed. I could imagine that further lectures would deepen rather than bring in new elements.

MVE: Please tell us about just one of the highlights of your artistic work over the last thirty years.

DM: Dvořák’s New World Symphony was indeed such a highlight! I had the great privilege of being a member of the Goetheanum stage group when Marie Savitch worked on the second and third movements of Dvořák’s New World Symphony in Dornach in the 1960’s. She was a master of big group pieces, and we included as much as we could for our production of these movements. I was able to recreate these forms from memory with the help of her forms. I still had to develop the fourth movement.

The Symphony Project in this country came about through the initiative of Marke Levene [eurythmist and founder of Lemniscate Productions] who had the vision for such a project, as well as contributing the financial support. We began in the summer of 2004 and performed the whole production in 2005. I then worked with the first movement with a group in Europe and we hope to work on it this summer in Spring Valley.

MVE: What is special about orchestral work?

DM: The orchestra brings the full human being to expression on a grand scale. The woodwinds correspond to the thinking part of the human being, outspokenly they carry the melodic element. The strings bring the middle realm, the breathing, warm harmonic element, and the brass, the will/limb aspect. Within each section there is again a three-folding or comparison to the voices of a choir or quartet—speaking very broadly. Flute and oboe, first and second violins, trumpets, and cymbals— they are the sopranos. Clarinet, viola, horns are the altos; bassoon, cello, double bass, and trombone are the tenors and basses. There is such wealth, through movement, to differentiate the various qualities; the clarity of the woodwinds, the flowing warmth of the strings, the forceful quality of the brass, and the throbbing accentuation of percussion. The difference between chamber music and orchestral music also holds good for eurythmy. There will be times when the music asks for a whole section to move together, where the different parts all serve the whole with a lot of doubling up; other passages require the individual treatment of each voice delicately interweaving. There is so much variety—surely working with a symphony is every eurythmist’s dream—at least, it’s mine!

In the summer of 2004 Dorothea Mier directed 43 eurythmists in the first symphonic eurythmy workshop in the USA, held at the School of Eurythmy in Spring Valley. They worked with the second and third movements of the New World Symphony by Dvořák, and 26 eurythmists from eleven countries went on to prepare the North American Symphonic Eurythmy Tour of 2005. — Pictures by Rafael Manaças of the Threefold Educational Center.