In their current ensemble manifestation, Pussy Riot, led by Marija Vladimirovna Alyokhina, brought their performance “Riot Days” to the “Alte Tannerei” in St. Johann (Tyrol) on Sunday. The collective resorted to multimedia, hard beats and spoken-word narratives.
The claim of the approximately 60-minute happening went beyond a conventional concert, not only because of the through-composed image-sound ratio. Due to the dramatic story, especially that of Alyokhina, fictional elements and the playful lightness of the search for meaning in narration and representation were largely hidden. The ultimate meaning was namely always tied down: sharp criticism of Putin and the warlike-criminal regime that went with him . Along this thread, the main focus was on the life, suffering and escape of the Pussy Riot front woman, divided into several chapters, theoretically underpinned by feminist slogans and declarations of freedom could play a role, as a spectator one wasted no time with the performance. The performance, whose artistic means flowed uncompromisingly into the staging of an unquestionable truth, was too loud, too powerful and clearly too engaging. Infernal screams and physical exertion The stage quartet, consisting of Aljochina, Diana Burkot, Olga Borisova and Anton Ponomarev, let brute electronic sounds collide with wild saxophone sprinklings and partly bloodcurdling screams that should conjure up hell on earth. And so the performance ended, among other things, with those very screams, which the three women on stage underscored by rolling on the floor with great physical exertion. The audience, sweaty and awed in equal measure, had no doubt that they had witnessed a unique event – authentic, truthful and of an intense elemental force. Markus Stegmayr
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