Has eurythmy been researched?

There have been some modest research projects. An interesting study of patients' responses to eurythmy therapy in chronic disease is published online at BMC Public Health. A teacher living near New York did an interesting thesis on how eurythmy might support youngsters broaden their verbal expression beyond a narrow repertoire of recycled clichés. Sadly she could not find a publisher. I have heard that someone in Europe investigated whether the life span of eurythmists was longer than normal. The results were not too encouraging for prospective eurythmists!

Actually every eurythmist is a researcher as performer, teacher or therapist and we are all learning as we do eurythmy. Reg Down, a eurythmy teacher in the USA, has developed new eurythmy figures for gestures that were not included in the set of figures designed by Rudolf Steiner. Reg's work has been published in the Newsletters of the Eurythmy Association of North America.

Assumption check: I hope we are all purposefully continuing to learn as eurythmists! Graduates of eurythmy trainings are sometimes referred to as finished but I think it would be more accurate to say we are started. I have been a started - and startled - eurythmist for 19 years, and I am certainly not finished yet. Even the postgraduate trainings for eurythmists are not finishing schools!

There is too little motivation - or time - to publish everything we learn about eurythmy. The Rundbrief (published by the Section for Eurythmy, Speech and Music at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland) often has intriguing articles based on profound experiences of eurythmy. The Rundbrief is available to eurythmists who are members of the School of Spiritual Science. Many of the articles are of wider interest, and I suggest that it would be a service to the development of eurythmy if such articles could be made available on line. For those who would like to develop their kinesthetic sense of eurythmical experience see the Discover Eurythmy Guide to Developing Eurythmical Experience (forthcoming).

Neuro-physiological research has spawned Brain Gym© which includes movement exercises for children that are surprisingly close to eurythmy exercises. Maybe there is more research of interest to eurythmists?

Discover Eurythmy would like to become a central point of reference for those involved in eurythmy research. It is vital for researchers to be able to find one another. A wide readership finds DEFAQ through internet search engines and Wikipedia. A number of good students have asked me about eurythmy as part of their studies, but so far no returns... If you are involved in, or know of any research that has any relevance to eurythmy then please make contact.

Discover Eurythmy aims to encourage more interest in eurythmy, dialogue between eurythmists and enthusiasts, and also more questions!