Kura Tuarua Marautanga
Upper School Curriculum
Te Au o Rongo-mā-Tāne Eurythmy
The teaching of eurythmy at a Steiner school involves integrating movement, music, and language to create expressive, rhythmic performances that reflect the Steiner philosophy of holistic education. It aims to foster students' physical coordination, artistic expression, and spiritual development through carefully guided exercises and performances.
Eurythmy Class 8
Class 8 brings a culmination of all that the students have learned in previous years. This is brought together in a meaningful world picture in which the human being has a central significance.
Students work with greater independence as they develop a sense of connectedness to the world, explore social skills more consciously and re-discover the attributes of beauty and goodness considering one’s responses to the artistic work presented.
Students are encouraged to bring a questioning approach to situations and tasks. In moving large group forms on more than one plane, they strengthen their awareness of and connectedness to others while retaining their own center.
In executing large group forms they will explore the individual dynamics of the choreography in relation to the whole. They will work in groups supporting their peers to create short presentations.
Students will re-discover notions of beauty and goodness by exploring dramatic poems and approaching artistically the different Soul Gestures and Feet Positions. Students will be asked to contribute ideas in small groups to deepen an artistic rendering of those principles.
The quality of the intervals is explored in music to deepen the student’s ability to express music in movement.
Work with copper rods will offer an opportunity to strengthen perseverance, accuracy and focus.
Eurythmy Class 9
In class 9, the students are challenged to observe and think with accuracy. In developing the artistic element of eurythmy, the students refine their creative capacities. A goal is to harness the very active and often polarizing inner experiences and emotions that the students have through movement that both challenges and brings harmony.
Students come to an understanding of the complexity and polarities of a subject through their increased awareness and engagement. They learn to observe with accuracy and objectivity, and in taking on diverse challenges, they build inner courage and perseverance, an example being challenging and composite copper rods exercises.
A further exploration of polarities is brought in working artistically with Major, Minor and Dissonance in music.
Bringing music and poetry to an artistic expression through eurythmy, offers the student the possibility of entering and transforming their inner feeling life. As an example of this, the Dionysian poetical principles that speak directly to the individual are introduced to the student. In this growing independence, the student will be asked to create, choreograph and demonstrate, their own short artistic pieces.
Moving with a sense of center and periphery, inner and outer in large group forms, the student is tasked with finding a healthy relationship between self and the other, individual form and group dynamic.
Eurythmy Class 10
The rhythmic system is brought into harmony through large geometrical forms which have rhythm and breath embedded. These forms require the student to work with these rhythms as part of, and in harmony with a large group eg TIAOAIT and Question and Answer.
The powers of perception are broadened towards objectivity by introducing more complex forms where the inner dynamic of the artistic provocations is explored, worked with, and expressed. Students work towards harmony by being aware of contrasting dynamics within a piece. This encourages objective thinking where the student can see their own part and that of their peers, within the whole.
Independent work is also included to foster awareness of one’s own actions where students work in groups on poems of their own choice.
The eurythmy gestures can be brought to a new level of comprehension and exploration as the students are offered the opportunity to work in another language. The sounds and their corresponding gestures can then be explored within a different context.
Eurythmy Class 11
A sense of aesthetic judgment develops in all artistic activities. The introduction of the gestures for the Planets in relation to the sounds of speech provides an opportunity to deepen the students’ understanding of the vowels. This serves to enrich the imaginative pictures that underly the gestures. The planets can provide a window through which students gain a deeper understanding of personal strengths both individually and within the group.
The eurythmy work is brought to a high level of performance skills with the creation of a public performance. Music, movement, costumes and stage lights interplay in an integrated, polished product performed for the community. The presentation of this product provides a performing focus for the year’s work.
Through the development of archetypal characters, the students are provided with a fresh opportunity to reflect on their identity thus facilitating healthy individualisation.
Eurythmy Class 12
Class 12 provides the students with an opportunity to synthesise skills and demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of eurythmy. They form their own groups and explore provocations of their own choosing using this material as a way of communicating with an audience. They make what they have learnt their own and stand by the standard of their work.
The gestures of the Zodiac are introduced and provide an opportunity for deepening an understanding of the consonants and their connection to humanity. This provides a window through which the students can acknowledge and honour their own capacities and learning styles. This results in deepening confidence and a stronger sense of agency as they leave their school years.
The creative process of the group work extends the social skills of compromise and communication as students work artistically towards a common goal. In their reflection the students can acknowledge their own strengths along with those of their peers as they manipulate their understanding and work towards forming a performance that is personalised, original, and communicates with an audience. This process involves students reflecting on their own journey with eurythmy as they sum up their years at school.