time, as people appreciated my approach. People relate to my style. In 2018, came the time for big decisions, to leave California and the US and the many good friends and colleagues here, and go once more into unchartered waters, just as the Dutch Seafarers did, exploring new horizons. A few performances I did with groups of teachers over
the years: in 1962, a Russian legend by Alex Remisow in Holland; in 1968, excerpts from the Hiawatha story by Longfellow in Scotland; in 1971, a lyre concert on the Kalewala with children in our Home in Rengoldshausen, Germany; in 1977, the Mexican story of How Music Came to Earth at the Esperanza School in Chicago; and in 1990, The Little Angel’s Way to Earth with students of our Baobab College in Alexandra, South Africa.
Creating a School for Working with the Word by Barbara Renold “In the sounds of speech live Divine Beings; and we must approach these Beings with devotion, with prayerful devotion. They will then be the very best teachers we could possibly have. …And we are dealing with realities when the sounds of speech in their mysterious running become for us Gods— Gods who form within us our speaking.” “In the human form the universe is revealed; in the forming of word and sound man is revealed. The speech organism itself teaches us how to speak; the organs of throat and mouth become the pupils of the sounds. The sounds are the Gods who instruct us; we must approach them with reverence.” (Rudolf Steiner, Speech and Drama Course, Lecture 18, Sept. 22, 1924) We all speak. Why might someone spend four years studying the art of speech, or even wrestle with deciding whether that was a life vocation? The Steiner School of Speech Arts opened in 2017 as a full-time training in the Art of Speech in response to a person wishing to take up this path. Though we have remained small in numbers, the intensity and joyfulness of the work continues to permeate those taking ‘a path less trodden’ and enlivens the life of the community through festivals, end-of-term presentations, and plays. Speech is very much connected with an experience of ourselves, our sense of Self, our personality. When we are tired or inebriated, when the Self is not so well connected to its physical instrument, speech is one of the first things that goes, and then, closely connected to speech, thinking. Those speaking more than one
language as a mother tongue are well aware of how differently one feels, thinks, perceives the world, depending upon which language you are speaking or thinking. The more we care about how we speak, the more our experience of true Selfhood, and not egotism, increases. Thoughts clothe themselves in the spoken word. They are in themselves, however, wordless. This process happens so instantaneously and instinctively that we are largely unaware of how we translate a thought into language. This is an intellectual use of language. Through creative speech, the artists enliven the spoken words through the speech sounds themselves, enhancing the intellectual meaning to an imagination. We work to do justice to those places where speech is creative, as in reciting poetry, creating the character in plays, etc. It is a long journey to bring one’s speech organism and growing relationship to the sounds of speech, to realize the wealth of the sounds that create a much vaster experience than the personal experience of the speaker. Four years working with diverse exercises, poetry, plays, eurythmy, Greek gymnastics, all activities to ‘tune the instrument’ to bring speech alive, is but a brief beginning to a life-long path. The Steiner School of Speech Arts offers the opportunity to work on creative speech. We believe that a full-time immersion is a one of the gifts of the 20/21st centuries, given to humanity through the spring | summer 2024
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