The stage of the Axis Club in Toronto was transformed into the landscape that ended up focusing the global eye on an artistic band of Russian activists. Although Pussy Riot has yet to topple Putin’s regime, the notoriety they achieved in 2012 has made them an activist force to be reckoned with.
Riot Days is a play based on the memoir of Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina. Although the performance maintained the original Russian language, the story of resistance, repression and revolution has been cleverly presented in a multi-media blitz that even allows those of us who are unfortunate monolinguists to follow along and feel a part of the concert, rally, theatre and political happening. After all, as they say, “anyone can be Pussy Riot.”
Before Riot Days began Liza Anne stepped on stage to warm the audience up. It’s amazing the power and full velocity a single musician can hit you with thanks to modern technology. In about 30 minutes she pulled you into her proudly gay and recently sober world and I found myself dancing and bopping along, trying to sing along to words I didn’t know. With one guitar and backing tracks, Liza Anne put on a spectacle that had the uninitiated indy-rocking and a-rolling to what her merch refers to as “cunty music.”
Hell, even audience members who don’t claim loyalty to Shania Twain, questioned their allegiance as Liza Anne passionately sang, “I’m still in love, what if that never dies Shania Twain is out here making me, making me cry.”
While the audience anticipated the beginning of Riot Days, Alexander Cheparukhin, producer of the show, shared some background on what exactly Pussy Riot is. Pussy Riot is not a punk per se, it is more of an activist collective that uses art to bring its message to the people.
In his short introduction, Cheparukhin gave a bit of history of the artistic climate Russia ended up fostering between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Although it wasn’t democratically free, artistically, Russia was extremely free during this period, more than any country Cheparukhin could think of.
He is the founder of GreenWave Music company. He was the artistic director of several international musical festivals, and it was through his connections that he could pull in support from prominent international musicians such as Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Paul McCartney. From there, support went global with help coming from underground art and music scenes to Jesus wearing a Free Pussy Riot shirt on one of his appearances in the town of South Park. The world got behind what was touted as a small feminist punk band that dared to perform a 40-second song called “Punk Prayer” in a cathedral in Moscow.
Riot Days has toured worldwide, given more than 200 performances in most of Europe, USA, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand and has received prestigious international awards, including Herald Angel Award, Lustrum Award and Total Theatre Award of Edinburgh Festivals.
As Cheparukhin informed the audience, Pussy Riot is an activist group. Most people outside of Russia may have stayed blissfully unaware of their existence had it not been for the unintentional endorsement of the Russian government when the group performed in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. As part of a multimedia protest piece, it highlighted the connection between the orthodox church and Putin’s government. The backlash, which included two years in jail for two members, the world ended up watching.
The two imprisoned Pussy Riot members, Maria Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova, were granted amnesty and released from prison when efforts were made to polish Russia’s image before it hosted the 2014 Olympics.
They both vowed to continue their activism when released, and they have made good on that promise. Pussy Riot has a revolving lineup of members who take the stage, so Tolokonnikova is not on this tour; however, she has been touring her art installation Putin’s Ashes to galleries internationally.
Riot Days, based on Alyokhina’s memoir, takes the audience from the early days of Pussy Riot to the Cathedral and the backlash – hunt, capture, court, and the verdict. The music’s momentum grinds into the prison sentence, eventual release and continuing activism, capturing all the associated emotional drama of the traumatic tale.
The musicianship of Pussy Riot is spectacular. Diana Burkot, who was involved in the performance of A Punk Prayer but managed to avoid the prison sentence, and Alina Petrova are the primary instrumentalists of the show. They also join Alyokhina and Olga Borisova to provide the four-pronged vocal assault of information for the audience to devour. Burkot also performs solo in a project called Rosemary Loves A Blackberry. Petrova co-founded the Kymatic Ensemble, an outstanding group of young musicians dedicated to developing performance practices in the post-modern academic music field.
Borisova was the editor of the Riot Days book and came to the arts by a unique route. She was a policewoman in Russia but quit her job to protest the regime. She believed her service would be more beneficial to the people as a political activist.
On stage Pussy Riot recalls the theatrical performances of Chumbawamba, the multimedia political barrage of CRASS, and yes, Pussy Riot, especially when performing Riot Days, is more than just a punk band. They melded the vocal melodies of pop music as if the Spice Girls were smashing those finely tuned sounds into the industrialized power of Big Black, and it was all marching down on the audience with a powerful activism vision.
I’m not good at meeting people who were part of such a powerful performance until my mind has had time to chew the food it has just been fed, but I’m happy I got in the line to have my copy of Riot Days signed. It would be awesome to have any of the fantastic minds of Pussy Riot on the Woodstein Media podcast. Riot Days was an experience that will remain in my head, change my vision and push me actively into the future.
In a period when attention is changing focus to the war ravaging Gaza – at one point, voices in the audience called out to “Free Palestine” – Pussy Riot reminded people that there is still a need for action against the horrible war in Ukraine, so during this tour, Pussy Riot has been money for the Children’s Hospital “Ohmatdyt” in Kyiv. They encourage people to donate and help the hospital support the victims of Russian aggression.
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