The following review appeared in a
local newspaper after our performance in the
"Theater am Stadtgarten" in
Winterthur, Switzerland. This theater, owned
and operated by the city of Winterthur,
offers exquisite facilities, with a
beautiful, large, well-equipped stage and
concert grand Busendorfer piano. In
Winterthur we were graciously hosted by the
local branch of the Anthroposophical Society.
Saturday [March 4, 1995]
evening's well attended performance by the
New York based Eurythmy Spring Valley
Ensemble at the Theater am Stadtgarten was
enthusiastically received. What impressed
above all was the successful embodiment of
music through eurythmy. The intelligibility
of the narrative pieces, on the other hand,
relied more on elements of pantomime and
costuming.
This
Winterthur debut of Eurythmy Spring Valley
Ensemble shows without a doubt that it is one
of the best ensembles ever been seen here,
which is working with this special, still
relatively young movement
art of eurythmy. Accompanied by a virtuoso
and sensitive pianist, a brilliant speaker
who led the audience through the evening's
program, and a lighting technician, these
dancers proved themselves to be masters of
their art, and surprised the audience with a
colorful program. The eurythmical portrayal
of Beethoven's Sonata 0p. 31 in
the first half of the program enchanted and
captured the audience, as did the works of
Chopin, the spirited Eccossaises and the
festive Ballade in g minor that concluded the
evening. As though the pearl-like tones
streaming out of the piano were visible, the
sounds floating in the hall were expressed by
the arm movements, by the bending and turning
pliable bodies, the floating delicate veils,
and in the whirling, flowing, parting and
coming together again of the dancers. This
showed clearly how eurythmy, in its ideal
form, does not interpret or illustrate, but
rather embodies the sound waves set into
motion by music or the spoken word, in order
to shape the audible and visible into a
whole.
Strictly speaking,
eurythmy, as developed by Rudolf Steiner and
grounded in Anthroposophy, should not need to
rely on pantomime and costumes. However, it
is hard to imagine that the story of
"The Countess Cathleen" by William
Butler Yeats would have been accessible to
the viewer through eurythmy alone without
those aids.
In this case the pantomimic
capacities of the participants and also
partly the costumes brought the characters to
expression. This also applies to a convincing
presentation of some short poems and American
folk songs, of which "Oh where has my
little dog gone?" and the impressive
scene with the Erie-Canal tugboats called
forth much applause.~~
S P
R I N G
