Confrontation between ‘I’ and World leads to the experience of a boundary: First, felt as a painful limitation of self; then, as a meeting point with the world—a simultaneous awakening and questioning. Imagination becomes a path of creative re-unification across this threshold.

The program begins by opening a listening space with words of Romanian-born Paul Celan’s (1920–1970) Einmal. Out of painful experiences as a Holocaust survivor, Celan sought in his works to forge the German language anew. This mysterious element of fire, purifying power of both creation and destruction, mirrors the poet’s words in the program’s title: Vernichten – Ichten (Annihilating – ‘I’-ing).

With an endless gaze towards the sea’s horizon, Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), portrays the ever-longing soul with its eternal question: What lies beyond? What can I hear, but cannot see? Elegie in E-flat minor by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) speaks out of dark depths of the heart with humility and tragedy, and yet a gentle softness sooths with sweet care and light. Kazan-native Sofia Gubaidulina’s (1931–) Toccata Troncata opens up new musical spaces, different stages of threshold experiences. The intensity and strength of the rhythms searchingly call, but also listen, to a palpable silence.
Another experimental, avant-garde composer, American George Crumb (1929–2022), in his composition Sonata for solo cello, strongly emphasizes the colorings of contrasts. Changes of tempo, bowing, dynamics, and intensity drive the technical and expressive performance of the cellist and the performers to the limit.
Valse Triste by Jean Sibellius (1865–1957), originally written for a play and orchestra, fascinates the ear with its richness, variation, and range, as the finnish composer paints with brushstrokes of colored tones and a seeming play of light, leading to a dramatic climax like a thunderclap dying away into a ghostly melody.
In English philosopher and linguist, Owen Barfield’s (1898–1997) La Dame a Licorne, medieval tapestries of unicorn and maiden, representing the senses are invoked. Here though, it’s not only connection between senses and world, but Barfield intones the soul’s imagination as primal world-creating power.

The postgraduate project year in eurythmy stage performance is aimed at eurythmy graduates, who wish to continue their education in eurythmy as a stage art.
The young artists were selected following an audition and began working together at the Goetheanum in Switzerland in October 2023. The nine eurythmists come from seven different countries: Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Peru, and Russia.

Over the past few months, they have been working full-time with a variety of experienced teachers on different elements of eurythmy and deepening their previous knowledge with a focus on stage art.
They have already successfully presented the results of their work in numerous performances for events organized at the Goetheanum and in its vicinity, as well as in their own personal programs: A first and second Solo Evening, a Workshop Performance, and the fairy tale The King’s Daughter in Flammenburg. They also performed at international eurythmy festivals in Italy and Witten, as well as in Lausanne and Brissago.

As a culmination of the project, the group has been able to organize a European tour in cooperation with the association Tanz dein Leben eV. They will present their final program Vernichtet… Ichten and the fairy tale The King’s Daughter in Flammenburg at various locations and will also offer workshops for young people.

The tour will take them through Switzerland, southern Germany, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, and Estonia, to Waldorf schools, Waldorf centers for curative education, eurythmy schools, and theaters.