Gurdjieff's Movements and
European Art

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) left a legacy of unique diversity. Besides his three books, which present an original vision of God, the universe and man, he also composed over 200 musical pieces, in collaboration with the Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956), and created an intriguing body of some 250 dances and physical exercises called "the Movements." No doubt, the Movements were intended as the spearhead of his teaching, and he once wrote that he wanted to be known simply as a "teacher of dancing."
For many, the first impression of the Movements will be like a revelation, because of their difference from anything they have seen before in the world of dance. For those who have practised the Movements often, they are known as "Sacred Dances." The Movements can make an extraordinary impact on a dancer's psychological state, expanding his awareness into new areas of experience.
Although the origins of these dances have been the subject of considerable speculation -and mystification-, there remains little doubt that Gurdjieff created most of them himself. A number of these dances stem from the Middle and Far East, where Gurdjieff studied them during his travels, visiting religious communities or special ethnic groups, but the majority he created himself.
If we ask ourselves what is really new about the Movements, we must consider them in relation to the works of contemporary prominent artists. A whole library could be filled with writings about Gurdjieff's philosophical and psychological ideas, but a comparative study regarding his Movements has never been made. What is offered here is just the sketch of a beginning.
According to one of his own explanations, the aim of his Movements was to assist the "harmonious development of man," by a method of "combining mind and feeling with the movements of the body, and manifesting them together."
This is a development that can never happen mechanically, by accident or by itself, and which stimulates the development of something that, Gurdjieff said, "interprets the whole man: mind, body and feeling."
The division of man into body, emotions and intellect was not uncommon in the writings of the Russian Symbolists and also brings to mind the work of François Delsarte. Now regarded as one of the founders of modern dance, Delsarte taught, in the mid-nineteenth century, a system relating all human expressions to one basic law, his Law of Three.