Montage as the Meaning-generative Principle of Avant-garde: From Montage in Cinema to Montage in Theatre (Soviet and Post-Soviet Theatre and Cinema)

Abstract

The principle of montage was a discovery of the avant-garde that is still widely used in modern culture. The article discusses how montage from a technique applied in early cinematography came to play a crucial role in organization of various texts produced by different arts, in particular, theatre. The avant-garde art strove to transform daily life and the montage principle was inextricably linked to these value orientations. This research analyzes the potential of montage as a meaning-generative mechanism in avant-garde films and theatre performances in the 1920s and 1930s. This principle gained significance for theatre in the second half of the twentieth and the early twenty-first century. The article investigates the connections between Soviet avant-garde theatre and cinema and explores the reasons why the interest to the montage principle was revived in Yury Lubimov's theatre and in the post-dramatic theatre of Dmitry Krymov.