Alumni News

Classes are done with live music, usually piano, to support the student to first train qualities within their soul, and then have the body be guided by this inner activity. Improvisation is used in the earlier grades, mostly with pentatonic music.

In the older grades when we attempt to make the music “visible”, we use compositions, mostly from classical composers. The students are posed with these challenges: Can I hear the rising and falling of a melody, can I sing it with my limbs? Can I hear a motif or a phrase, when it repeats, when it changes, and can I align myself with it while moving the choreography? Can I go from quick to slow or the other way around without stopping, falling, losing the rhythm? Can I grow confident and caring to lead a group of fellow students without “losing” them? Or can I follow and feel my way into how someone else might lead? Can I hear where I need to be at a certain moment? Can I hear this moment coming?

As students grow and incorporate all these challenges, eurythmy helps them bring, at the right time, the appropriate amount of consciousness to the three aspects of their being, and to support and grow a flexibility and balance as those elements weave together.

Eurythmy calls forth grace, refinement, uprightness, and balance in children's bodies. It allows pupils to fill each action with feeling and meaning, and to enliven their thinking through imagination to think and know others, and lastly, to awaken to the rich world around us.

Thus, the striving in eurythmy is primarily a human one, to come to know and balance one's own being, so that one may grow strong, and more and more free within oneself amidst and with and for one’s fellow human.

Anne-Meike Gassmeyer (pictured left) is the SFWS Eurythmy Teacher Arizona Muse, Grade 10, 2005, an international fashion model, has appeared in numerous magazines in the last six months including the cover stories for the April 2020 editions of Spanish Vogue and the UK publication Stella. Muse uses these platforms and social media to continue her activism on behalf of biodynamic farming and sustainable fashion and beauty. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

Brooke Reiche, HS Class of 2015, graduated from Austin College in spring of 2019, and is now based in Santa Fe, where she works as an illustrator and designer. She has also published two volumes of her graphic novel Moonbones, which she sells on her website, brookereiche.com, along with linocut prints and cards.

Teissia Treynet, Grade 8 1998, reports that she married Todd Putnam on February 8, 2020, just outside of Park City, UT. She writes: “Lots of Waldorf friends were there with us! Rowan Finnegan who is my best friend from SFWS kindergarten is actually the person that introduced me and Todd.

“Tara Kohn (Grade 8, 1997) stood up with me during the wedding, and her brother and parents were there as well. Adam Herling (Grade 8, 1998), Simran McKenna (non-graduating member of class), and Matt Crouse’s (Grade 8, 1998) family were also there. Matt couldn’t make it because he just had a baby! (Class of 1998 teacher) Michael Oellig was in attendance as well! He blew the conch shell as soon as we were married. That was always how he called us in from recess, and he blew it at our high school graduation as well. What a great guy! Also, my first grader, Charlotte Casey, (Grade 8, 2005) made the trip out to celebrate with us! We’re still very close. And Sadie Munson (HS Class of 2007)who is my other best friend’s little sister, was there as well! So many Waldorf folk! It was so magical!!”

Treynet, owner of Firefly Events, lives with her husband in Laguna Beach and adds that “Todd and I are both still employed and healthy. All you can ask for these days!”

26 Puesta Del Sol, Santa Fe, NM 87508 santafewaldorf.org

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

As a year-end community project, teachers created a "mandala" form drawing in chalk on the school basketball court. Families came onto the campus in 30-minute intervals over the course of a week and filled a section with their own artwork.

Cover photo: Tau Durán y Jennings, Grade 5, works in his main lesson book at home this past spring. SFWS teachers and students all worked hard to adapt to the use of technology during quarantine, while also continuing with the traditional cores of art and handwriting. Photo by SFWS Grades teacher Micayla Durán