{"id":34239,"date":"2023-02-12T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=34239"},"modified":"2023-10-03T14:12:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T13:12:47","slug":"pussy-riot-punk-riot-days-lese-majeste-cabaret-political-education-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/music\/pussy-riot-punk-riot-days-lese-majeste-cabaret-political-education-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Riot daze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">At a recent organising meeting, the facilitator asked us all: \u2018What\u2019s giving you political hope right now?\u2019 The silence it prompted was only broken by sighs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following a summer of strikes and growing union reach, the powerful launches of <a href=\"http:\/\/dontpay.uk\">Don\u2019t Pay<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/wesayenough.co.uk\">Enough is Enough<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.organisenow.org.uk\">Organise Now!<\/a>, and the fleeting promise of Conservative Party implosion, the bleak winter has arrived with bite. Prices are climbing ever higher. Government is marching ever farther right. The opposition, in name, is following suit. The austerity axe is poised to swing. People understandably feel deflated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the meeting, after a pause, most rallied to recall people and projects still lifting them up. It had a knock-on effect: we gave each other hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Drag kings and drag things<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I spoke about a cabaret I\u2019d been to the week before, where \u2018drag kings and drag things\u2019 took sharp political acts to the stage alongside laughter, pride, and joy. It was hosted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendsjoinersarms.com\">Friends of the Joiners Arms<\/a> (FOTJA), a community benefit society that this year crowdfunded \u00a3125,000 and is set to launch the UK\u2019s first community-owned queer pub. As LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces battle threats of closure nationwide, including Glasgow\u2019s workers\u2019 cooperative <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bonjourglasgow.club\">Bonjour Bar<\/a>, FOTJA is a beacon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At its <em>L\u00e9se Majest\u00e9<\/em> cabaret, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/prinxsilver\/?hl=en\">Prinx Silver<\/a> and king <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/don1birmingham\/\">Don One<\/a> brought regal realness to an audience gleefully not grieving either Liz departed. A poet in a flat cap led a chorus of <a href=\"http:\/\/abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com\/2014\/12\/acab-nursery-rhyme.html\"><em>ACAB: A Nursery Rhyme<\/em><\/a>; abolitionist banners streaked the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center rp-full-width rp-quote has-grey-color has-pale-1-background-color has-text-color has-background has-antonio-font-family\" style=\"padding-top:2%;padding-right:2%;padding-bottom:2%;padding-left:2%;font-size:clamp(1.743rem, 1.743rem + ((1vw - 0.2rem) * 1.571), 3rem);\"> As LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces battle threats of closure nationwide, Friends of the Joiners Arms is a beacon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My hope did not spring from there, however. It came from the intermission, when members of a local CopWatch group led a peer education forum on stopping stop and search. Their basement corner was packed fuller than the bar upstairs, than the toilets or the smokers\u2019 yard. Know Your Rights flashcards passed from hand to hand; ears pricked up to listen in; questions were answered with nuance and care. Not a rallying call to seated cheers, but political education gently inviting people on a night out to stand up, speak up, join a movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Politically primed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Meeting people where they are is a vital strategy in any liberatory fight, both polar opposite and complementary to direct action tactics. The punk feminists and Russian exiles who comprise Pussy Riot know the score. This autumn, they <a href=\"https:\/\/riotdays.com\/\">toured small UK venues<\/a> with an astounding work of political art disguised as a \u2018gig\u2019. One hour; one \u2018song\u2019: an abridged cut of co-founding member Masha Alyokhina\u2019s prison diary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.co.uk\/books\/306607\/riot-days-by-alyokhina-maria\/9780141986616\"><em>Riot Days<\/em><\/a>, sung, spoken, acted and played out over a projected collage of archive film, sketches and statements. Subtitled in English throughout, it tells the story of Putin, of Pussy Riot, of Russia\u2019s political prisoners, of protests ongoing back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expected a politically primed crowd. Clearly not all had read the bios. Some men grumbled beside me, perplexed at the avant-garde punk; an audience reading, not dancing. They stayed for the encore, though, which condemned war in Ukraine and demanded we not look away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018Ours is one story,\u2019 said Masha at the end. \u2018You each have your own. Freedom doesn\u2019t exist unless you fight for it, every day.\u2019 No intermission but another invitation edged with hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">This article first appeared in issue #238, Winter 2022, <em>Deluge and Drought.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Subscribe<\/a> today to get your magazine delivered hot off the press!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the current political climate, despair come easy. From Pussy Riot to queer cabaret, we must find hope in one another, argues Siobhan McGuirk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":38782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,199,2542,2543],"tags":[2567],"class_list":["post-34239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feminism","category-lgbtqplus","category-music","category-stage-screen","tag-siobhan-mcguirk"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Riot daze - Red Pepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rpdev2023.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/music\/pussy-riot-punk-riot-days-lese-majeste-cabaret-political-education-hope\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Riot daze - Red Pepper\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the current political climate, despair come easy. 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