STRIKE! (Stachka!) - spontaneous music on film

Admission free; a voluntary donation is taken. 82 mins with interval.

Strike brought the radical stage techniques of Vsevolod Meyerhold and the Proletcult Theatre to the screen to tell the stirring story of a 1903 workers’ walkout at a Moscow factory.

The striking proletarians’ demands include wage hikes, the 8 hour day - only 6 hours for children! - and more.

Using powerful imagery and the “montage of associations,” Eisenstein vividly, viscerally depicts class struggle, pitting the collective mass hero against the capitalists, their spies and police.

Using eye-popping movie metaphors, Eisenstein portrays the czarist regime’s savage brutality with a gripping grand finale that’s like getting punched in the face.

MK Lord and Lyndon Owen are established improvisers whose remit is to react to the emotion of the film rather than echo the action or narrative. They do not watch the film in advance avoiding any pre-emptive cliches or foreknowledge in the performance.

This is one of a series of films with spontaneous music offered by the Bank Vault and Gwrandewch every month as part of "NAWR Aberystwyth" experimental music and poetry events