Performance of Burning Doors by Belarus Free Theatre with Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina

Belarus Free Theatre presented Burning Doors with Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina livestreamed from Contact in Manchester, UK on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Wednesday 12 October at 12 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 2 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 3 p.m. EDT (New York) / 19:00 UTC/GMT / 8 p.m. BST (London) / 21:00 CEST (Berlin) / 22:00 MSK/EEST (Minsk, Moscow, Beirut). On Twitter, follow @HowlRoundTV, @BFreeTheatre, and use #BurningDoors to share your thoughts. 

Watch the livestream here on HowlRound.TV or on the Belarus Free Theatre's livestream webpage. 

What happens when you are declared an enemy of the state simply for making art? Where do you belong when your government suppresses your basic right to expression? And how do you survive in one of the most brutal prison systems in the world?


This brand new production blends sensuous theatricality and vigorous physicality to shine a light on total suppression of artistic freedoms, drawn from the real-life stories of iconoclastic Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky, incarcerated Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, and Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina, who makes her stage debut.

Belarus Free Theatre is one of the leading refugee-led theatre company in the UK and the only theatre in Europe banned by its government on political grounds. Burning Doors draws on the company’s own experience of political oppression and continues their campaign to stand up for artistic freedom and human rights across the globe.

After the performance, the conversation will include the following people:
Andrei Khliyvynuk, activist and frontman of Ukrainian rock group Boombox
Natalia Kaplan, cousin of Oleg Sentsov, incarcerated Ukrainian film-maker
Eugene Stepanenko, TV and Theatre Director turned soldier, from Ukraine
Nicolai Khalezin, co-founder Belarus Free Theatre
Julie Ward, Member of the European Parliament

Created in partnership with ArtReach as part of Journey Festival International 2016; co-commissioned by Arts Centre Melbourne. Developed at Falmouth University’s Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA). Burning Doors is generously supported by Arts Council England.

Click here for more information about Burning Doors.

About HowlRound TV
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