The Gait as Political Choreography

This book explores the entangled relationship between marching and political ceremonies for the consolidation of the nation-state. The main questions tackled in this book are: How did German and Japanese authorities choreograph the ideal gait and how did they transmit it to students? How were political ceremonies constructed and what did the collective gaits of students represent? Which aspects of marching exercises and school ceremonies may have been transferred from Germany to Japan? By analyzing archived sources written in German and Japanese this book investigates the transnational character of the marching ceremony and the knowledge transfer behind it. Rather than on the level of ideas and ideologies this book explores the process of nation-state building primarily on the level of cultural performance. With the upright gait in the school context as a research object, I examine the collective gait of adolescents as a political choreography that was orchestrated by political authorities and performed by juveniles with their active assistance and cooperation. By doing so, this book reveals that the nationalization of school-attending juveniles deeply relied on emotionally charged, collective bodily experiences.