Austin Eurythmy Ensemble: Our bodies, our instruments

Mention the word "eurythmy," and, more often than not, you'll be met with an incredulous blank stare and the question, "What?" At least part of people's confusion concerning eurythmy can be attributed to its relative youth as an art form, as it was created less than 100 years ago by Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher probably best known for his development of Waldorf education. Eurythmists embody sound through movement, both sounds made by instruments and sounds made by spoken words. Thus, most eurythmy performances are accompanied with both musical instrumentation and spoken-word texts.

"You cannot look at us as dancers because that is not what we do," says Markus Weder, one of the three eurythmists that compose the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble, which will present Touched Twice at One World Theatre this Sunday in celebration of its 10th anniversary. "I love dance, and we have connections to the dancers here in town, we go to their performances, but they do something very different than us. In eurythmy, we express the sounds of a word, the consonants, the vowels, also the coloring, anything that can be expressed through speaking. The human body becomes a sculpture in motion expressing poetry. We call this speech eurythmy. We also perform what we call music eurythmy, in which we express the tones, the intervals, the harmonies. We go very much by a score, like a pianist does. A violinist plays the music on the violin; we play the music using our bodies as the instruments."

Touched Twice had an interesting genesis. "We had a European tour planned in 2004 with a piece called Voices of the Hereafter," says Weder. "Eurythmy is much more popular in Europe than in the States, so it's a lot of fun to go there and perform. A month before we were to leave, my wife and I were involved in a car accident, and we had to cancel the tour. As we went through the aftermath of the accident, we had this inspiration of being touched in different ways. And you know, it just comes naturally – if you're touched once, you must be touched twice."

Included in the program will be pieces by Turkish composer Fazil Say, Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, and poet Mary Oliver. Accompaniment will be provided by violinist Rebecca Browne, pianist Brent Watkins, and spoken word artist Ellen Burke, with a special preshow performance by Austin singer-songwriter Rachel Loy.

Austin Eurythmy Ensemble will present Touched Twice on Sunday, Dec. 10, 5pm, at One World Theatre, 7701 Bee Caves Rd. For more information, call 32-WORLD, or visit www.austineurythmy.org.