The Wander-Light Eurythmy Company

Mark Neill

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Eurythmy Workshops

  

Mark Neill

Mark studied with the European master Else Klink, receiving a diploma to both teach and perform Eurythmy.

After graduation, he formed the Wander-Light Eurythmy Company in 1991, performing hundreds of times throughout Australia, and overseas.

While continuing to perform, he is also training others.

"About fifteen years ago I saw the elderly Else Klink when she brought her Stuttgart Eurythmeum to the southern regions of her birth. In Sydney they played to a packed house. When I saw the Wander-Light Eurythmy Company perform I immediately noted the link with this other performance I'd seen all those years ago. There was something about both 'shows' that have made them live on for me."
    Margaret Bruevel, N.S.W., Australia.

What is Eurythmy?

In Eurythmy (Eurythmie, Eurytmi, Eurytmia), the artist and the instrument are one. The archetypes of life are brought into play and develop the cognitive, social and individual abilities of the human being: both the physical and inner lives are strengthened. Through doing Eurythmy, the individual is connected more with the creative centre of the world.
Working with the creative forces of speech and music, Eurythmy is a powerful means of connecting.

 

Performances by the Wander-Light Eurythmy Company

RICHARDIII

The different take we have on RichardIII is not just portraying a dictator with a chainsaw....that is a bit simplistic, and not what Shakespeare was really on about. He was investigating WHY we act as we do, why we knife people in the back, why we wring things out of other people, why we farm chickens as we do, why we feedlot cattle, why we live for money etc.

A recent report in The Age said Autralians have never been so well off materially, but never so unhappy: "Now is the winter of our discontent..." is the opening line. Shakesoeare is on about an INNER unhappiness, an INNER discontent, an INNER hunchback. Indeed, an acting troupe from Rustaveli, Georgia toured the world with a production OF R111 in the 80's that, like ours didn't have Richard with a hump all the time! If you read the play crefully you will see the other Characters have a hump more than Richard: Ann curse him (and his wife!) to hell and is, as Richard points out, VERY unmerciful.

Performances by the Wander-Light Eurythmy Company
During 2008, Mark Neill will be teaching in Australia and Europe, as well as preparing for an extensive schools tour of Australia in 2009. He is also preparing a new T.S. Eliot programme, to be performed in Melbourne in 2009.

LRRHThe Wander-Light Troupe (Eurythmie Ensemble, Eurythmie Buehne) offers:

  • A unique combination of theatre-in-movement, storytelling, live music and brilliant costumes, which create theatrical magic.
  • High quality, all-live shows that engage the child’s own imagination.
  • A repertoire consisting of classic fairy tales and legends, because they support development of ethical, social and community values in a fun way.
  • Performances aimed specifically at the primary school age group.

To enquire or make a booking, please email or phone 03 5470 5581.

2007 Schools Tour (Sold Out)

In April, May and June 2007, The Company presented "Yhi Brings Life to the World" (Koori legend) and "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD" to schools throughout the Eastern States and South Australia

Lear"KING LEAR, his daughters & the Fool"
a movement & voice production

Last performed at the Montsalvat Shakespeare Festival, July 2004
featuring Mark Neill & Friederike Heinsdorff (movement) + Reg Evans (voice).

"I think I was most taken by the Eurythmy Lear - it fair blew me away. King Lear and his Daughters was electrifying."
Marie Ryan, Radio FM88.6
Death Scene from Hamlet - choreography by Mark Neill
Heaven make thee free of it.
I follow thee …
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time – as this fell sergeant, Death,
Is strict in his arrest – O, I could tell.
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,
Thou livest, report me and my cause aright
To the un satisfied.
O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story…
What warlike noise is this?
O, I die, Horatio,
The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy th’election lights
on Fortinbras, he has my dying voice.
So tell him, with th’occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited……the rest is silence.

Eurythmy Training

After twenty years in this field, Mark Neill has started training others. Through ongoing lessons and on the job experience, both Eurythmists and students are guided on the road to professional Eurythmy. Our last four productions (and tours) have included students with no prior experience in the field. Recently, after attending workshops with the Wander-Light Eurythmy Company, Joel Gajewski and Jessica Miller, from Newcastle, joined us on our 2003 Eastern States Tour. Tim Heath played Jack in Jack & the Beanstalk on our 2004 tour & Tess Scott played Cordelia in our recent production of King Lear at the Montsalvat Shakespeare Festival. Dovlyn Quek took part in our 2007 tour of Eastern Australia. None of these individauls had trained in this art form but all have relished the opportunity to gain hands on professional experience therein. The opportunity exists for others to do the same. We hold regular courses and workshops. Contact us.

Finding The Gesture Workshops

September 30th NIDA Workshops

Finding The Gesture is the aim of all dance: from the text or score to the gestures that make the story visible, a performance. The painter has colours, the dancer movements of his or her body.

In life -- eg. when we clap our hands -- the movement comes first, the sound second. There is a movement contained or hidden in the sounds we hear, a movement prior to the resultant sound. But is this not also so for the sounds of music and the words of our language? We choreographers and dancers spend large parts of our lives searching for these hidden movements or gestures! We hear lots of movement, or gestures, in the works of many creative artists like Beethoven, Bach, E. E. Cummings or Shakespeare. The question is: how do we dis-cover these movements, these gestures?

We must take time to listen to the score or text -- listen with our eyes to or see with our ears, the notes, chords, intervals, phrases, sentences, words etc. We must work from the text or score to the gesture, because it is in the text or score that the poet or composer has left us their magic and it is this magic we seek to show, to be our show.
So, starting with a few intervals of music and some basic sounds of our language -- even with some text or musical phrase -- we will attempt to discover the inherent gestures lying at their root. We shall also seek to discover whether certain parts of our body or instrument are better suited or formed to express the hidden reality of each gesture. Then we will practise and play with these, just as a Beethoven or a van Gogh did in their respective media. We do not seek to add anything but to discover the hidden. Just as red has a very different gesture or expression to blue, so has the interval of a sixth a very different gesture to that of a fourth.

Discovering the archetypal gestures and incorporating them into our body -- building our instrument -- is a long road. But we must begin. Letting the expression of the sound (in text or score) impress itself upon us is our aim. This making visible of the magic that lies hidden is the aim of all art, of all science, of each individual life. Let us go one step deeper into the world and discover the archetypal gestures; let us take our audiences there! From the cold characters of text or score to the warm characters of the story, let us become a Lear, a Cordelia, a Rumpelstiltsken, a cello, or a clarinet --
”I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.”

Information and bookings: contact us.

Download Workshop Brochure

Educational Programs

"The Flying Eurythmy Service"

Over 16 years devising & applying eurythmy programs to children from four to eighteen years old at schools from Cairns to Hobart: specific programs for the consciousness of & hurdles facing each age group.

Some advantages include:

  1. Development of gross motor skills which fire the neurons in our brain thereby developing our fine motor skills making us more intelligent, more aware of others’ needs & better able to achieve our goals in life.
  2. Fun antidote to sedentary life-style of most children that lessens the chances of developing obesity & diabetes.
  3. Movement based on classic literature & music enhances development of vocabulary, emotional well-being & strength of purpose. 

Some schools Mark has worked at:
Tarremah (Hobart), Mansfield Steiner School, Orana (Canberra), Newcastle Waldorf School, Casuarina (Coff’s Harbour), Chrysalis (Bellingen) & the Armidale Waldorf School. 

To book/discuss a block for your school, obtain contact details of referees or to enquire about costs
phone 03 54705581 or email us. 

New! Eurythmy exercise DVD - more info

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