news for members & friends Memoriam for Gail Biesantz-Faude

June 5, 1941—March 13, 2024

Gail was originally from Michigan. She was an alumna of Lawrence College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As a 21-year-old college sophomore in 1962, Gail studied in Paris under the institute’s honor program in contemporary European civilization. Her eurythmy training was under Marguerite Lundgren at the London School of Eurythmy. In 1975, Gail worked at Esperanza School in Chicago and then she did another term at the London School of Eurythmy that year.

Gail loved speech eurythmy and poetry. She worked with American poet Daisy Aldan on a translation of the Calendar of the Soul, so that the speech sounds and rhythms could be coordinated with the eurythmy forms. Hagen Biesantz wrote an introduction to the 1974 publication. Gail was an active writer of letters and she deeply loved poetry. Her letters almost always had a poem written on a separate sheet in her very distinctive handwriting.

Gail was married to Hagen Biesantz, a member of the Executive Council at the Goetheanum, and they lived together in Dornach, Switzerland.

Hagen Biesantz, a German classical archaeologist and art scholar, was appointed to the Executive Council

Eurythmy

an art of movement as spiritual path the invisible made visible how I am shaped and created out of The Word eurythmy makes limber the limbs of listening it inspires a recognition of the movement that has formed me as I shape the air gesture that each sound of speech awakens when spoken I awaken and only out of that can I write at the Goetheanum in 1966. His academic focus led him to head the Section for the Performing Arts beginning in 1968, and he later founded the Section for the Performing Arts in 1978. His contributions enriched the cultural and artistic endeavors at the Goetheanum for many years.

Hagen Biesantz gave lectures at several conferences, such as “Reincarnation and Karma” in Chicago. He taught art history at The Waldorf Institute in Detroit. These were very powerful in deepening the life of anthroposophy in America.

Hagen spoke this verse at a meeting of the Section for Performing Arts in Spring Valley, New York, on May 4, 1992.

For Marie Steiner

To sacrifice the word, one gains power.

To sacrifice power, one gains will.

To sacrifice will, one gains insight.

To sacrifice wisdom, one gains spiritual life in present reality.

Hagen Biesantz (3 November 3 1924, in Cologne – † 4 December 1996, in Dornach)

Beth Usher, Barbara Richardson, Judith Pownall Gerstein, Maria Ver Eecke

Poem

dewpoint of the word, crystalline heard the I empties opens listens to the silent movement within The Word creating Self the poem stands—a column upright condensed Halleluiah song in praise of the highest dance Living!

© gail langstroth