The American 46 and French 39 Series of Movements

This introrductory description of the 39/46 series of Gurdjieff's Movements comes from Dushka Howarth, posted on the Gurdjieff Heritage Society website. Please refer to http://www.gurdjieff-heritage-society.org/movements.htm for more information.

Of the several hundred Movements created and experimented with by Mr. Gurdjieff in the last ten years of his life, only a small percentage did he consider to be complete and evidently to fulfill his aim so that he then gave us permission to continue working with them. The so-called “Thirty-Nine Movements” are those he finished and authorized for continued use in France and another seven he added when we worked with him in New York during his last visit.

 These forty-six authorized movements are what we are particularly concerned with preserving for the future. The American order is the exact order in which Mr. Gurdjieff gave them to us in New York before his death in 1949.  Therefore we consider it to be of more significance for teaching the Movements than the French order, which simply reflects the order in which these Movements were completed and does not include seven of the authorized Movements.  (See below for the complete list in the American order.)

 In addition to our own memories, experience and notations, we depend on the valuable notes made by Jessmin Howarth and Alfred Etievant working together in New York in 1949. These were made in response to instructions left by Mr. Gurdjieff before he returned to France that: “Movements must be the same in America as in Europe.”

This description comes from Wim van Dullemen in the introduction to his two volume CD recording of the 39 series.

The '39 Series'

The last decade of Gurdjieff's life, the second stage of his Movements teaching, was one of extraordinary creativity. "Our group had a class once a week," remembered Mme. Solange Claustres, "and he taught at least one new Movement in each one of them. This continued for the seven years I was in his classes! He demonstrated the new Movements, but rarely explained much about them. His presence was so strong - it literally filled the whole place-that you could absorb the new exercise in a direct way. No further explanation was needed. It was never allowed to make choreographic notes, because this activity would reduce our first and complete impression to an analytical or rational attitude." Gurdjieff's stream of creativity was confirmed by another pupil, Mrs. Jessmin Howarth, a choreographer at the Paris Opera and a pupil of Dalcroze before she joined forces with Gurdjieff: "He used to come every evening with three or four absolutely new attempts." Those who were in his classes at that time described Gurdjieff's creativity to me as an empirical experiment of great intensity, lasting years. He made a supreme effort to develop exercises that would help people to strengthen their awareness, will and power of attention. Sometimes he was weak or sick and had to support himself, leaning against the piano to keep standing, but kept on working

It was also explained to me that Gurdjieff studied the results of each new Movement he gave by observing the state of the people in the class. Many of his new exercises did not reach the goal he had in mind. It is reported that sometimes he went away during the classes, to come back after a while to propose a small change in a Movement: for instance, a wrist that had been straight was now bent, an arm that was horizontal forward was now diagonally forward. Occasionally even these new changes did not bring about the desired state in the dancers, and he then gave a strict order: "No… stop and forget this one, don't perform it again ever." However, if a Movement did create the desired state in the psyche and bodily expressions of the performers he'd say, "That's it, this one is set and ready now. What number are we?" referring to the numbers they gave to the new set of "successful" Movements, representing the slowly growing list of what became the "39 Series." The 39 Series were thus the kernel of his new exercises, the ones he had accepted as finished and relevant. All his other attempts, many of which have been remembered and have been performed since by his students, did not have his full approval. However beautiful they are, their relevance remains open to discussion

Work on the Series went on until the last moment, to come to a stop only because of Gurdjieff's sickness and, ultimately, his death. Even on his last trips to America he added seven new Movements to the list (resulting in what's now referred to as the American 46 series)

If we compare the 39 with Gurdjieff's earlier Movements we find the same components: strong dervish dances, beautiful and quiet women's dances, powerful geometrical patterned Movements, as well as sacred prayer-rituals. However, the ancient religious and ethnological components are markedly reduced while abstract gestures and positions, performed in mathematical displacements, now prevail. It is as if, during the fifteen-year interval since his first efforts, Gurdjieff had digested his earlier impressions and reflected upon them. When he continued his work on the Movements, they re-appeared with an even more personal style, in which mathematical and geometrical crystallizations are now dominant

The drama of the human condition, so poignantly captured in a number of the old Movements, seems to have given way to a more abstract construction, but one that gives immediate and plentiful opportunity for work on oneself and work for the class as a whole. The later Movements were even more difficult to perform than the earlier ones and demanded a huge effort from a class in terms of precision, quickness, discipline and sustaining attention

The 39 Movements have been called Gurdjieff's magnum opus; many have felt that they summarized his whole teaching to mankind

Additional Information:

Many of the numbered Movements from the 39/46 series have been given names. A partial list of these names is shown below in the following two tables. The first table is sorted according to the American numbering system for the 46 series. The second table is sorted according to the French numbering system for the 39 series with the additional American movements added at the bottom. Details about some of the Movements are available through the menu on the left for logged in participants.