Issue 93 / October 2018

REVIEWS
“As I watched Maria
onstage scream
and shout about the
revolution, I can’t
help but wonder, the
revolution for whom?”
Riot Days (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu)
Riot Days
Pussy Riot presents @ Arts Club – 22/08
A man in front of me collecting his guestlist ticket seems
disappointed the girl on the door doesn’t respond when he says
thanks in Russian. Really, that sums up the common western
attitude to PUSSY RIOT, and perhaps even Russian politics in
general. We view Pussy Riot’s Russian background as quirky and
a commodity; we fetishise and demonise the eastern state as
being on one hand mysterious and on the other viciously cruel.
Western news sights are so biased in their portrayal of Russia
that to find any factual information on what is actually happening
is not only difficult, but more often than not it’s misleading. I say
this because you can’t really appreciate Pussy Riot, and tonight’s
Riot Days performance, without some sort of context in which
Pussy Riot exist. Without the political and activist motivations
behind this performance, it is nothing.
It’s not musical; anyone who had come along for a dance is
bitterly disappointed. Riot Days’ musical backdrop is very much
just that, a backdrop to the spoken word of Pussy Riot founding
member and tonight’s frontwoman Maria Alyokhina. For context,
in 2012 Pussy Riot performed two main feats of activism, most
notably storming Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in
protest of the Church’s right-wing presence on the Russian
political environment. This resulted in the arrest of Alyokhina,
along with Nadya Tolokonnikova and a prison sentence of two
years for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Later, a
third member was arrested, and in 2014 all three were released
under amnesty. Since then the group’s guerrilla antics have
made appearances at the Sochi Winter Olympics and the FIFA
World Cup final. All this has made them, in the west at least,
unrivalled feminist heroes. We love to champion Pussy Riot
because, to us, nothing could be more punk rock than fighting a
system we perceive to be as evil as Russia. And yet our media
champions Pussy Riot because it confirms their bias that Russia
is the ultimate evil. That very well might be true: Alyokhina’s
documentation of her time in prison and her treatment by
Russian officials and police is little less than horrifying. Straight
out of Orwellian dystopia, there is little more evil than torturing
three young people for questioning the corruption of a state. This
is something empathetically highlighted in tonight’s performance.
As Maria, or as she is addressed tonight, Marsha, comes to
the stage donning her iconic blue balaclava, she is meet by a
roaring room. The energy is strange; in his introduction the host
asks us to act as punk rock as possible and yet the low tempo,
often ambient bleeps and bloops of the synths chill you out
rather than fire you up. As Alyokhina starts her performance,
entirely in Russian with English subtitles, you’re instantly given
an insight into the world of Pussy Riot: how they hatched the
plan, the reaction, the feeling, the emotion. Regardless of your
opinion on Pussy Riot, it is interesting. In an age where most
punk bands went to music school and fund their bohemian
lifestyle via their dad’s bank balance, Pussy Riot are at very least
a change in the pace of modern punk. Yet, this seems at odds
with their behaviour post-release. Nadya opened an art show
– Inside Pussy Riot – at London’s Saatchi Gallery, where paying
punters have a chance to walk around in a colourful balaclava,
hold a sign that says ‘Share the World’s Wealth’ and then meet
at the end for pricey Prosecco and posh nibbles. Is this a sell out?
A contradiction? Or is this milking rich idiots to fund activism?
Both Nadya and Maria appeared on Netflix drama House Of
Cards, as themselves, criticising a Putin-based character. Nothing
spells out punk rock more than a Netflix Originals cameo. But
who wouldn’t? Perhaps we hold our standards too high for our
punk icons; perhaps after spending two years in Russian prison,
of which a large portion was in solitary confinement, there is
nothing wrong at all with cashing in. I would agree, but I feel as if
these high standards are set by Maria and Nadya themselves.
Riot Days is a performance filled with aggressive intent;
fists go flying in the air, slogans such as ‘YOU ARE PUSSY
RIOT’ flash on the screen. It’s being sold to us as authentic, and
yet we’re all left questioning, ‘Is it?’ There must be something
severely wrong if you can do two years hard time for activism
and people still doubt your cred. For me, it has been the outing
of tonight’s frontwoman Maria, and her links to the Russian
far-right Orthodox Christian group God’s Will, the very group
that campaigned publicly for Pussy Riot’s incarceration. Pre-
Riot Days (Stuart Moulding / @oohshootstu)
Pussy Riot, God’s Will was a little known far-right group, their
main intent to be anti-LGBTQ+, to attack pride parades, and to
intimidate LGBTQ+ groups. However, during the trial of Pussy
Riot, God’s Will surged to fame in Russia, as they echoed a
common sentiment publicly, that Pussy Riot deserved a prison
sentence for religious hatred. Some would call Maria and God’s
Will leader Dmitry Enteo’s relationship forbidden, secret and
proof that love can conquer all. More cynically, I believe it to be
that Pussy Riot was always more about Pussy Riot’s notoriety
than enacting real social change. I don’t believe anyone who is
as politically minded as Maria would be able to forgive Dmitry
Enteo’s actions, both physically against the LGBTQ+ people he
has attacked and politically against the far-right fascism that
he stands for. More obscurely, Maria’s attitude to this news
circulating has been suspicious to say the least: The Daily Beast
reported that when interviewing Maria in New York, the interview
was stopped whenever Enteo was mentioned. While Nadya
talked about a friend who was “fucking a fascist” in an interview
last year.
So, as I watch Maria onstage scream and shout about the
revolution, I can’t help but wonder, the revolution for whom? For
women? What about lesbian women? What about trans women?
There is no doubt in my mind that a force against Putin is
essential, but should we so blindly believe what we are being
sold. Which brings me back to my first point, we view Pussy
Riot’s Russian origin as a quirk and a commodity. You can wear
your balaclava, you can buy the book, you can pay £145 to go to
the immersive experience, but in the words of Gil Scott-Heron,
if “the revolution will not be televised”, be dubious at how much
Pussy Riot have made it onto your TV. !
Esme Grace Brown / @catmilf123
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