Choreographing National Identity: The Role of Movement and Biopower in Countries of Real Socialism

Abstract

The driving research question behind this thesis is: how do ballet and its derivatives choreograph society in countries of real socialism, like Cuba and Yugoslavia, by disseminating political motivations into the body of a nation to construct national identity and project Eurocentric ideals? By using a historiographical evaluation of video evidence, I argue that ballet is used as a physical embodiment of socio-political objectives to rehearse social collectivism and reconstruct national identity from an internal and international point of view, as seen through the construction of the Cuban technique of ballet and the communal mobilization during the Yugoslav Day of Youth. I conclude that institutions of ballet function as sites of social reproduction of ideology that physicalize political objectives under the tenets of choreo-politics and social choreography.