STAGING A REVOLUTION Can choreography serve as a mechanism for staging a revolution?

Abstract

Can choreography serve as a mechanism for staging a revolution? The starting point of this thesis is to study the broad implications of social choreography qua performance of ideology taken as a model of investigating two revolutionary films: October: Ten Days That Shook The World by Sergei Eisenstein and Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl. I will focus on these two iconic movies in drawing on the theory of Andrew Hewitt on ‘social choreography’, a term that is coined by him, and Louis Althusser’s conception of ideology and body revolution. How are ideologies brought to the bodies of the actors in these two films? For what collective reason and purpose? And how do these films invite the spectator to participate and be inculcated in the ideologies?