Dictionary for Revolutions

“Students protesting—we’ve seen those countless times! Students have been protesting since the beginning of time.

Alongside exams, classes, retakes, and parties, students carry another responsibility: when the planet goes off track, it’s up to them to change its direction.

The word revolution comes from the Latin revolutio and originally meant a turning or a change of direction; it was used to describe the movement of celestial bodies.

History has shown us that the planet often goes off course. But it has also shown us that its direction can change just as often—just like the meanings of words. The word revolution, for instance, carries a bitter meaning today for some of us. We imagine confusion, violence, burning buildings.

Yet revolution can also mean change: changing the meaning of the words we speak, the ideas we spread, the socio-political order of a community. Today, as in many past and yet-to-come moments, students—alongside many others—fight for change: online, in classrooms, in the streets. On many streets, the struggle unfolds through singing and dancing, as in the recent protests in Georgia, where each demonstration was accompanied by music and fireworks (used by protesters to defend themselves against police violence), or in Iran, where people danced in the streets against the regime.

And why not in a musical? Where ten students barricade themselves inside their own classroom as a form of protest, and after nearly a month, manage to change the world.

Just like in the streets across the world, on stage in this performance, music and dance become tools through which the meaning of words, ideas, and systems can be transformed.” – Alin Uberti