Plato the Choreographer

Precisely because dance was a vital civic activity of paramount importance in ancient Greece, foregrounding Plato's choreographic imagination sharpens our sense of him as a perceptive cultural critic and often controversial political theorist. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Laws, his final and most overtly legislative dialogue, where he envisions the second-best city---utopian Magnesia---as a vast communal choral ensemble, structured and behaving in accordance with a lawgiver's strict precepts. The aesthetic, political, and cultural implications of such a vision receive sustained scrutiny and questioning throughout this study.

Across these analyses, the founding figure of Western metaphysical philosophy emerges as a visionary artist of movement. His thought proves surprisingly relevant to experimental forms of choreography in the modern era.