The first part is a multidisciplinary performance about civil resistance, staged by Anna Abalikhina. It synthesizes four distinct mediums: poetry, music, choreography, and scenography. At the heart of the performance is a cantata written by Vladimir Rannev in 2020 in response to the protests in Belarus and their suppression. Rannev's cantata consists of eleven independent songs, each set to a poem by Belarusian playwright and poet Konstantin Steshik.

The second part features premieres by three exiled Belarusian composers. Their works convey the intense emotions felt by Belarusian people as they watch from afar their country, paralyzed by a violent dictatorship: a mixture of longing, despair, resistance, and hope.
The poem by Ales Rasunau, set to music by Kasimierz Wicz, reflects this state: "Still capable of falling ill, still capable of humiliation and suffering, still capable of dying, I smash my soul and hands against the stones and walls that surround me." Marina Lukashevich addresses the indifference in behavior, "when people fail to acknowledge the terrible things happening around them, or choose not to perceive them." Oxana Omelchuk, in her cycle of miniatures, incorporates poems by Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort: "It is an attempt to give a musical expression to the anger over the events in my country, which is currently in a state of fear and stagnation."

NEUE VOCALSOLISTEN
vocal ensemble

The singers of the Neue Vocalsolisten see themselves as explorers and discoverers: in exchange with composers, they are constantly searching for new forms of vocal expression. One focus is on collaboration with artists who virtuously exploit the possibilities of digital media, with an interest in networking, in playing with genres, in dissolving space, perspectives and functions. Thus, idiosyncratic interdisciplinary formats between music theater, performance, installation and concert staging characterize the projects of the ensemble, whose work, with more than 30 premieres annually, is considered worldwide to be leading and unique in the field of contemporary vocal.

VLADIMIR RANNEV
composer

Graduated from the composition department of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 2003, Rannev composes both acoustic and electroacoustic music, which has been performed in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, Finland, Japan, and the USA by various ensembles, including the Orchestra of the St. Petersburg Conservatory Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra, eNsemble, Studio of New Music, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten, and Ensemble Mosaik, among others. Rannev also works in theater, where he took part in numerous staging projects in several theaters, such as Alexandrinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg) and the Theatre Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). His opera Two Acts, with a libretto by Dmitri A. Prigov, premiered at the Hermitage Museum (with Ensemble Mosaik and conductor Enno Poppe) and won the Grand Prix of the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize in 2013. The opera Drillalians was nominated for the National Theatre Golden Mask Prize in 2016, and the opera Prose was awarded the National Theatre Golden Mask Prize in 2019.

ANNA ABALIKHINA
сhoreographer, performer,
educator, and curator

Anna graduated from the Moscow Choreographic Lyceum and the Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands. She has worked with the Dutch company Galili Dance and the German company In-Jung and has participated in projects by Rodolfo Leoni and Anouk van Dijk. She has collaborated with numerous drama and music theaters, contemporary art festivals, and laboratories, working with renowned drama directors such as Yuri Lyubimov, Kirill Serebrennikov, Philipp Grigoryan, Timofey Kulyabin, and Dmitry Krymov. She was a resident artist at the American Dance Festival. In her interdisciplinary projects, she explores the synthesis of dance and media technology, interactive video, and sound. She collaborates with composers, video artists, programmers, and engineers. As a guest choreographer, she actively works with drama and opera theaters, as well as contemporary art museums and galleries, such as the National Theatre of Latvia, Dailes Theatre (Riga), Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), the State Theater of Nations, Gogol Center (Moscow), Theater-Theatre (Perm), Tretyakov Gallery, Garage (Moscow), Ural Opera, and Ballet Moscow. She served as the curator of the dance section in Kirill Serebrennikov’s project "Platform," and the International Festival-School of Contemporary Art “Territory.”

KSENIA PERETRUKHINA
scenographer, visual artist

Since 2000, Peretrukhina has worked as a visual artist, presenting her work in solo and group exhibitions and participating in various projects both in Russia and abroad. Her exhibitions have taken place in cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Hanover, Paris, New York, and others. Since 2005, Peretrukhina has also worked as a stage designer for drama productions. Her collaborations include the Baltic Circle Festival (Helsinki), TINFO (Finland), Klockriketeatern (Helsinki), Tampere Workers' Theatre, Espoo City Theatre, Vaba Lava Theater Center (Tallinn and Narva), Theater of Nations (Moscow), Alexandrinsky Theater (St. Petersburg), Theater-Theater (Perm), PRAKTIKA Theatre (Moscow), Moscow Art Theater, Gogol Center (Moscow), and various independent venues. Peretrukhina is the laureate of the “Innovation” contemporary art prize (2020) and has been nominated for the “Black Square” contemporary art prize and the “Kandinsky” art prize. She is also a multiple nominee and winner of the “Golden Mask” National Theatre Prize (2013, 2018, 2019).