Yushkova, Ella

Protest movement in contemporary Russia is seriously threaten by the state. Nevertheless, some street performances of the last few years have become milestones of artistic resistance to growing authoritarianism. Wrapped in a form of challenging and provocative actions they shook a sleeping society, comforted by propagandistic mantras pouring out from the state-controlled TV channels. Several pieces were performed by talented female artists, although the level of challenge was different – from absolutely shocking for public morale to just ironic and theatrical. Less provocative and – unfortunately - less resonant than the famous Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 2012 was a performance, created by Amnesty International in 2014, which became a real symbolic Requiem to last rights and freedoms in Russia. It was shown in January 2014 in Moscow and entitled Dying Swan. The young performer, Alexandra Portyannikova, danced the famous 1907 piece, staged by the Russian choreographer Michel Fokine, with handcuffs on her arms in the open air in winter, when the temperature was more than minus 25 degrees Celsius. The performance aimed to attract the attention of the audience to the situation in human rights and freedoms in Russia. It was artistic, elegant and effective regarding its ability to use legal opportunities for expressing the protest and not to harm the actor.  The “manifestation of femininity” in this performance was even more evident than Pussy Riot’s, but much less provocative and rude, although both of them were quite new for the “hyper-masculine and misogynistic culture” (Alexander Etkind) of the “petrostate”. These and some other cases will be analyzed in the paper.

Elena Yushkova, Ph.D., is an independent scholar and writer residing in Vologda, Russia. She is the author of two monographs: “Isadora Duncan: New Findings on People and Circumstances Surrounding the Dancing Icon” (2019) and “Plastique of the Overcoming: Notes on the History of Russian Interpretative Theater” (2009) – both in Russian. Elena has published more than 40 academic articles in journals, collective monographs and collections of proceedings in Russia, USA, Germany, Norway, Canada, and Poland. In 2007-2008, she became a Fulbright fellow and spent six months at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C working on her research “Isadora Duncan and her influence on Russian art and mentality”. Elena has presented at numerous international conferences in Europe, USA and Russia.

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