A review of Protest, a play directed by Aldona Figura. Written by Václav Havel, staged by Teatr Dramaryczny in Warsaw, premiered February 2020.

On June 26th Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court announced that theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov and his colleagues would face a suspended sentence along with a series of fines. The case of the alleged fraud of the theatre company Sedmaya Studia reverberated throughout the entire cultural community in Russia and abroad.

On June 26th the international theatre community awaited the decision of the Moscow Court regarding the fate of Kirill Serebrennikov. Serebrennikov, a leading director in Russia, was accused of committing large-scale fraud. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to over five years in prison. His case was covered by major European newspapers, from The Guardian to Der Spiegel and Le Monde, and was commented on by various celebrities, both in Russia and abroad. Even those unfamiliar with the case became suspicious when a director with numerous awards, whose work have been shown at festivals in Avignon, Venice and Cannes, was accused of stealing government money, particularly in a country ranked 149th out of 180 in the Press Freedom Index.

A review of POSTWEST // guess where. An online cultural festival organised by the Volksbühne theatre. Berlin, Germany, 2020.

Maciek and Adam are back in the latest episode of Talk Eastern Europe! This episode is dedicated to the upcoming POSTWEST Transcultural Festival which will take place in Berlin 27-31 of May.

Interview conducted by Olivia Capozzalo and Smith Freeman of the She’s In Russia podcast.

A review of Inside Pussy Riot – an immersive theatre performance at Saatchi gallery, London.

On February 21st 2012, a group of five women wearing colourful balaclavas entered the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and pulled off a 40-second show which changed their lives forever. Calling on the Virgin Mary to chase Putin away, the feminist punk band Pussy Riot protested against the growing authoritarianism, corruption and human rights abuses in Russia. Three of the band members – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – were immediately detained and then sentenced to two years at a labour colony for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. After an appeal, Samutsevich’s sentence was suspended.