Image by Ai Weiwei“One of the bravest and most inspired underground troupes on the planet” - The New York Times on BFT
Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), the radical underground theatre company founded under Europe's last surviving dictatorship mark their 10th anniversary this year. To celebrate, BFT have announced a two week festival featuring 10 of their landmark productions.
The first week of events will be at secret locations as they would be in Minsk where BFT are banned from performing. Each performance will be followed by a discussion of the most urgent topics of our time with leading thinkers and activist.
The following week, BFT return to the YV to perform three of their critically acclaimed productions. Take a look below for more info:
A WEEK OF EVENTS AT SECRET LOCATIONS
4.48 Psychosis
Mon 2 Nov at 6pm (Secret location #1 - London postcode EC)
Going against the regime, Sarah Kane’s groundbreaking show was BFT’s first ever underground production in 2005. Today, they continue to tell human truths and illuminate the obvious and hidden taboos within society.
Book now.
Price of Money
Tues 3 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #2 - London postcode SE1)
Money makes the world go round - whether you have it or you don’t. Inspired the first political satire from ancient Greece, Plutus by Aristophanes, Price of Money is a scathing attack on inequality and excess.
Book now.
Minsk, 2011: A reply to Kathy Acker
Wednesday 4 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #3 - London postcode SE11)
If scars are sexy, Minsk must be the sexiest city in the world...
A love letter to a home that exiles those willing to fight for it, Minsk, 2011 celebrates and mourns a land that has lost its way.
Book now.
Generation Jeans
Thursday 5 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #4 - London postcode SW1)
BFT present their critically acclaimed duologue about rock music and resistance. Performed by BFT co-founder Nikolai Khalezin with music by DJ Laurel.
Book now.
Discover Love
Fri 6 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #5 - London postcode EC)
Based on a true story, Discover Love is a stirringly powerful original drama about Irina Krasovskaya and her husband Anatoly, a supporter of the Belarus opposition movement who one day simply "disappeared".
Book now.
Zone of Silence
Sat 7 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #6 - London postcode N17)
The human spirit prevails in the face of adversity. Told in three independent chapters, Zone of Silence is an insight to everyday life under dictatorship and the taboos that are vehemently repressed.
Book now.
Trash Cuisine
Sun 8 Nov at 6.20pm (Secret location #7 - London postcode N4)
BFT serve up food, music, dance, Shakespeare and true stories from inmates and executioners in this challenge to the ongoing existence of capital punishment in the contemporary world.
Book now.
A WEEK OF EVENTS AT THE YOUNG VIC
Time of Women
Mon 9 & Tues 10 Nov
The world premiere of a play about women on the forefront of a movement for a democratic Belarus - women with an unflinching and unswerving dedication to the truth.
Book now.
King Lear
Wednes 11 & Thurs 12 Nov
A fresh reading of Shakespeare’s classic that draws on on first-hand experience of tyranny and exile whilst also interrogating the universality of power unwisely yielded.
Book now.
Being Harold Pinter
Fri 13 & Sat 14 Nov
A poignant contemporary commentary on institutionalised violence, freedom and human dignity featuring testimonies from Belarusian political prisoners and excerpts Harold Pinter's lifetime of writings.
Book now.
In the press: "The audience in Belarus is the bravest in the world" BFT co-founder Natalia Kaliada talks to the Guardian about Staging a Revolution and stage life under authoritarian rule.
Staging A Revolution runs from 2 - 14 Nov.
