Art Incarcerated: The Creative Fight For Free Expression In Eurasia

October 17th, 2017 @ 7:00pm EST

About this event

Presented by PEN America

Creative freedom is under threat in Russia and its neighboring post-Soviet states, and artists are making their stands on stages, public squares, and screens. Join PEN America in conversation with Natalia Kaliada, co-founding artistic director of the courageous underground Belarus Free Theatre, and Maria Alyokhina of the Russian protest rock group Pussy Riot as they share their stories of creativity vs. repression. They are making a rare New York City appearance while on tour with Burning Doors, a searing dramatization of artistic persecution featuring cases including Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker and writer now serving a 20-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony recognized with the 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award.

Tickets are not available via the SubCulture website or box office, but may be purchased here.


Natalia Kaliada is founding co-artistic director and CEO of Belarus Free Theatre, a writer, a producer, and a human rights campaigner. Known for making some of the world’s most provocative theater, BFT was described by The New York Times as “one of the most powerful and vividly resourceful underground companies on the planet.” Over the past 12 years, its award-winning productions have been performed in leading theaters and festivals in over 30 counties. Known for her innovative method of fusing art and politics in order to bring systematic changes to societies, Kaliada received two Meritorious Honor Awards for Personal Bravery and Courage from the U.S. State Department. Alongside Free Belarus Now and the We Remember Foundation, she took part in high-profile meetings with former U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former U.K Foreign Secretary William Hague, and with European presidents and prime ministers. She has made guest appearances on numerous TV and radio programs, including BBC’s HARDTalk, CNN with Christina Amanpour, Channel 4 News, and ABC Australia, and has been interviewed for leading publications including The New York Times, the Guardian, La Monde, the Toronto Star, and more. In 2011, she was forced into exile from Belarus and currently lives in the U.K.


Maria Alyokhina is a Russian activist and member of Pussy Riot. The balaclava-wearing female punk group Pussy Riot hit the headlines in 2012 when a guerrilla performance of the protest song “Virgin Mary, redeem us of Putin” in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral led to their trial and imprisonment. The anti-Putin performance, condemning his corrupt relationship with the church, lasted just 40 seconds before they were arrested. Alyokhina together with bandmates Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were accused of “hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred.” Maria was sentenced to two years in prison. Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience due to “the severity of the response of the Russian authorities.” She was released in 2014 and has since campaigned across the world for prison reform in Russia. Burning Doors is her professional theater debut and first co-creation with Belarus Free Theatre.


Burning Doors is a searing performance on how art persists under oppression. Through the prism of persecuted artists who will not be silenced, Burning Doors reveals how artists living under dictatorship illuminate the knife-edge of complacency in democratic societies reminding us of the true cost of freedom and dangers of inertia. Burning Doors is playing at La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theater in New York from October 12-22. Learn more

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Tickets are not available via the SubCulture website or box office, but may be purchased here.

Where
SubCulture
When
October 17th, 2017 @ 7:00pm EST
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