Marina Abramovic Caught Pussy Riot’s Tour Launch at Elsewhere

Pussy Riot launched their US tour at Bushwick’s Elsewhere last Thursday night with a bold display of their actionist performance art. Summoning the energy of a protest rally, Pussy Riot’s co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova led her fellow balaclava-clad DJ and dancers through a foray of their videos and songs that were strewn with their activist goals. Opener Dorian Electra also fed that spirit; with prominent figures of equality in attendance such as artist Marina Abramovic and Bust magazine co-founder Laurie Henzel, the show became much more than a concert.

Earlier in the week Tolokonnikova joined Abramovic for a Times Talk where the two discussed their works in detail. Tolokonnikova, who was jailed for almost two years at the age of 22 for her 2012 guerrilla performance in a Moscow Cathedral, was clear in describing that activism is most important to her and that “performance is one of the greatest forms of art because it opens to the fact [that] life co-creates or creates the art itself.” When moderator Melena Ryzik askedvTolokonnikova if she was afraid during the recent anti-Putin protests in Moscow, she said “courage is the ability to act in the face of fear…I don’t want to get scared, but I’m scared sometimes. But I’m trying to work on it because otherwise it will stop and you’ll get stuck and I don’t wanna get stuck.” The modest bravery in her answer caused Abramovic to tell the audience, “I love this kid!”

On Thursday at Elsewhere, it was communicating to the audience that was the challenge for Pussy Riot’s courage. Inge Colsen, co-founder of their PR company Gold Altlas, told me, “Their goal is to have people get inspired instead of just being entertained.” When Dorian Electra came onstage backed by DJ and collaborator Weston Allen along with her two dancers, she wasted no time touting her female identity with songs such as “Clitopia” and “Vibrator,” performed as she waved a Hitachi Magic Wand. Dorian Electra’s costume changes added to the performance and Allen’s balaclava complimented the Pussy Riot motif.

Pussy Riot’s opening also made no mistakes about their activist intensions. The first of their trademark videos, VJ’d by artist and educator Melanie Clemmons, showed an animated Tolokonnikova with a computerized voice sharing 24 facts about Russia’s inequality and then going into a detailed condemnation of Vladimir Putin. Taking the stage with Moscow DJ CHAIKA (not to be confused with the group’s single, “CHAIKA“) coupled with Electra and Allen dancing back-up, the group belted out a string of Pussy Riot’s Russian songs whose language barrier was broken by the English text projected behind them. The subtitles were video art themselves and unique from song to song.

Pussy Riot closed out the show with their recent English single “Straight Outta Vagina,” They danced in t-shirts with the Russian flag as the crowd cheered on lines such as “If your vagina lands you in prison, then the world is gonna listen.”