Event
Art Incarcerated: Talking with Pussy Riot & Belarus Free Theater
October 17, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
7 p.m.
Subculture
45 Bleecker Street
New York, NY
Tickets: $8
Creative freedom is under threat in Russia and its neighboring post-Soviet states, and artists are making their stand 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. Moderated by author and journalist Andrea Chalupa.
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.
