BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
20/08/2009
Danger and drama on the outposts
When hip hop went mainstream, rappers ceased to be spokespersons for the disenfranchised and degenerated into cynical and grotesque caricatures of ghetto reality.
Belarus lies only a few hundred kilometres south of Finland, but in many respects its culture and politics are redolent of a European nation from further East in a previous era. Labelled by then-US Foreign Minister Condoleezza Rice in 2005 as one of six "outposts of tyranny", its politics are those of a country squeezed between former ruling power Russia and the liberal West, and dominated by its dictatorial president, Alexander Lukashenko.
Belarus Free Theatre
Zone of Silence
Korjaamo Stage
29-30 August, 18:00
Discover Love
28 August, 18:00
30 August, 14:00
Plays performed
in Russian with subtitles
in English.
The literary culture of Belarus is inextricably tied up with that of its northern neighbour, and much of its art reflects the tension of its balance between East and West. The recent visit of US President Barack Obama's European envoy Phillip Gordon may signal a lightening of Western attitudes, but if the message of the Belarus Free Theatre is correct, then life, politics and theatre are defined by the continuing heavy hand of the Lukashenko regime.
Two plays showing at Kor-?jaamo's Stage during the last weekend of August, Zone of Silence and Discover Love, both highlight the terrifying prospects for the government's opponents.
Anthony Shaw - HT
Nikolai Khalezin
Source:
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/culture/7626-danger-and-drama-on-the-outposts.html
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