Art Eurythmy in Waldorf Schools

A movement art, Eurythmy, is required in most Waldorf schools, generally from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Eurythmy, founded by Rudolf Steiner, is usually performed to poetry or music, and aims to create a unity of the movement, the performer's inner experience and the expressive reality (spiritual content) of the piece.

I speak in all humility when I say that within the Anthroposophical Movement there is a firm conviction that a spiritual impulse of this kind must now, at the present time, enter once more into human evolution. And this spiritual impulse must perforce, among its other means of expression, embody itself in a new form of art. It will increasingly be realized that this particular form of art has been given to the world in Eurythmy.

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.

Rudolf Steiner, "Lecture on Eurythmy"

Whereas the six or seven-year old children would typically be performing a nursery rhyme, folk tale or simple melody in eurythmy, the eighteen-year olds might perform large-scale musical and/or dramatic pieces to their own choreography.