FOr for 16 years, the Belarusian Freedom Theater has promoted freedom of speech, equality, and democracy through underground performances from temporary locations to audiences eager to provide alternative voices to the country’s autocratic dictators. Alexander Lukashenko.
Now this banned company has made a major decision to relocate outside Belarus, Saying that the risk of retaliation against its members is too great to continue cultural resistance under the Lukashenko regime.
16 members of the BFT Orchestra in London Next year’s performance rehearsal in Barbican, plus nine other family members, have decided that they cannot go home for the foreseeable future. BFT is the only theater company in Europe that has been banned for political reasons.
Its new base has not yet been established, but Poland and other Eastern European countries are being considered. The troupe has ruled out the possibility of applying for asylum in the UK because its members will be prohibited from working during the process, which may take more than a year.
After Lukashenko announced his victory in a flawed election in August 2020, several members of the BFT were imprisoned during widespread protests. The co-founders of the theater, Natalia Kaliada and Nikolai Khalezin, have lived in London since they were forced into exile in 2011.
Cagliada said that in 2021, a theater company was forced to move out of a European country for “fear of persecution and torture”, which is unprecedented in history. She added: “In a country that is only three hours away from London, it is a shame that we not only allow artistic freedom, but also allow basic human freedom to be completely ignored.
“The pure existence of freedom in Belarus theater Despite being suppressed, our continued work is the greatest threat to the dictatorship — the people’s willingness to continue to speak the truth is the greatest display of power imaginable. “
With the strong suppression of the regime Protests after the controversial 2020 election“Obviously, we need to get our team out of this country,” Kaliada said. “The suppression is very severe, and people are arrested every day.”
Company members left Minsk in October to take different forms of transportation. She said that some were smuggled out of the country. All of them left their parents and other relatives and brought nothing except clothes and small personal belongings. “Leaving their family is very painful for them, they feel guilty,” Kagliada added.
The members of the BFT have been granted a 6-month artist visa, which will expire after their dystopian thriller “Dogs of Europe” ends in Barbican in March. At the same time, the company will travel to Poland later this month to provide them with accommodation, and return to the UK in February. “We are in trouble,” Cagliada said.
Svetlana Sugako, the managing director of BFT, was among those arrested in August 2020. She was held for five days and another 35 people were squeezed into a four-person cell.
“There was no air, no food for three days, and we had to drink dirty water. I could hear people screaming and shouting when they were beaten. You don’t know how or where it will be done,” she said. “I don’t want to leave Belarus, but I have no choice. The future is unknown, but I’m still alive.”
Lukashenko’s suppression of dissidents has swept the Belarusian art world, leading to the purge of national cultural institutions, and hundreds of writers, actors, painters, musicians and others in exile.
“There are a large number of creative people working in the protests,” said Khalezin, a founding member of the Independent Belarusian Cultural Council. “Artists are among the first to put in Luxchenko’s crackdown.” He said that the number of people engaged in art activities imprisoned for the protests is comparable to the number of other high-risk groups such as journalists and human rights workers.
The security services in Belarus make it almost impossible for independent artists to continue working in the country. A Minsk visual artist said that after the police started visiting her at home due to protests this year, she gave up the shared studio space. She asked a friend to retrieve and hide her paintings and other artworks because she was worried that they would be confiscated or destroyed.
Vlad Kobets of the Belarusian Solidarity Center, a Warsaw non-profit organization linked to BFT, stated that the troupe is expected to arrive there in mid-December due to a major trend that opposes Belarus and chooses to stay away from Belarus. Part. government.
“These educated people…usually young people, they are the promoters of the protests,” Kobetz said, pointing to opera singer Margarita Levchuk and other recent immigrants. Said. He added that the exodus exposed the cultural poverty of the Lukashenko government. “You can’t build a country with a baton alone.”
BFT has streamed many of its works outside Belarus to audiences in the country, and performed secretly in residential courtyards, warehouses and garages in Minsk.
“We know that we are stronger than the regime,” Kagliada said. “The authorities are more afraid of artists than political statements. Everyone believes that the situation in Belarus will change, but now companies need security.
“At this most critical moment in our history, we ask the British public to stand with us. Unity is vital to our survival.” The company is Appeal for donations.
Patrons and supporters of the award-winning BFT include the Czech playwright, dissident and President Václav Havel who died in 2011; the late Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter; Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard; Actors Jeremy Irons and Kim Cattrall; and Pink Floyd’s guitarist and singer David Gilmore.
Kaliada said the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been very supportive.
Will Gompertz, Joint Interim Managing Director of Barbican, said: “We are very happy to work with friends from the Belarusian Freedom Theater and to provide the company with a platform for their important work during this difficult time.”
