transcultural studies 13 (2017) 264-286 brill.com/ts Pussy Riot and the Translatability of Cultures Irina Dzero and Tatyana Bystrova Kent State University [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract The punk feminist collective Pussy Riot translate new ideas by embedding them in the visual symbols of the target culture. With their short bright-colored dresses and tights they tap into the stylistics of the Russian female performance as non-threatening am- biance to take the stage and protest against misogyny and authoritarianism. In 2012 they performed at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral and asked the Virgin Mary to put an end to Vladimir Putin’s rule. They were captured and sentenced to two years in prison for instigating religious hatred. Welcomed in the West, they made a music video “I Can’t Breathe” (2015) using the case of Eric Garner to explain the tolerance for au- thority in Russia. We look at the eclectic mix of thinkers and artists Pussy Riot named as their inspirers, and use the collective’s work to examine the changing attitude to the translatability of cultures. Keywords Pussy Riot – tolerance for authority – authoritarianism – intercultural translation – performance art Pussy Riot, a Russian punk feminist collective, rose to fame after their “punk prayer” – dancing at the altar at the Moscow Christ the Savior Cathedral and asking the Virgin Mary to “chase away” Vladimir Putin, Russia’s ruler since 2000. This article examines the collective’s work as intercultural translation: they seek to make intelligible bodies of knowledge poorly known or understood in the target culture. In performing for the Russian audiences, they introduce femi- nism and political activism. They use visuals – their image, dress, and dance moves, the place they choose for their performance (prison roof, church, lux- ury boutique) – to get these new ideas across. With their short bright -colored © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/23751606-01302009Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:15:09AM via free access <UN> Pussy Riot and the Translatability of Cultures 265 dresses, they tap into the image of a stereotypical non-thr eatening female en- tertainer and buy themselves a few minutes to promote, in a visceral and of- fensive manner, the principle of government accountability and transparency, and women’s rights. Pussy Riot also tap into the Orthodox Russian cultural tradition of holy foolishness: disruptive, strange, and spectacular behavior to challenge the excesses of the Church, the wealthy, and the autocratic ruler. In their “punk prayer,” Pussy Riot accused the head of the Russian Church and the head of state of stifling the movement for democracy in Russia. The state responded by retranslating this performance into a crime of religious hatred. A group of experts assembled to evaluate the performance argued that the group’s intention was to insult the Russian Christians. The two captured mem- bers of the group, Maria Alekhina and Nadia Tolokonnikova, spent almost two years in prison. After they were released, western politicians and audiences re- ceived them with open arms. The duo gave public lectures at us and European universities, met with politicians, appeared in The House of Cards and even in Glamour magazine to explain punk feminism in terms of girl power. When they began performing for western audiences, they focused on the high toler- ance for authority in Russia and the arbitrary use of force by the state against its citizens. Their music video “I Can’t Breathe” uses the case of Eric Garner, which many take to prove that ethnic minorities do not enjoy the same civil rights as the white majority. We propose to examine Pussy Riot’s work as per- formance of intercultural translation and a case study of the shifting attitude to intercultural translation in general. To understand the group’s objectives and strategies, we look at the thinkers and artists they named as their inspir- ers: Judith Butler, Rosie Braidotti, Shulamite Firestone, Andrea Dworkin, bell hooks, Valie Export, Lynda Benglis, Santiago Sierra, Artur Žmijewski, Boryana Rossa, and Elena Kovylina. This eclectic blend of influences exemplifies the optimism of the early 2010s inspired by Democracy’s Fourth Wave – the rise of anti-authoritarian movements in the non-western world. Cultures were con- sidered permeable, translatable, and enriching for one another. This thinking has been put to the test since then, as the escalating suspicion of all estab- lished authority is changing societies all over the world. Dress, Dance Moves, Lyrics, and Artistic Inspiration Pussy Riot’s logo is a fiery-eyed girl in a short bright dress and a balaclava, armed with a guitar that shoots lightning bolts. The collective explain that the name “Pussy Riot” aims to “turn the female sex organ, supposedly receiving and shapeless,” into a symbol of “radical rebellion against the cultural order transcultural studies 13 (2017) 264-286 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:15:09AM via free access <UN> 266 Dzero and Bystrova Figure 1 Kropotkin-Vodka: Pussy Riot Burns Putin’s Glitz (2011) that keeps trying to define it and show it its place.”1 The performers wear neon- colored short light dresses, tights, and sports shoes. They jump, kick, punch and thrust their pelvises as they shout insults at sexists and conformists in the government and in their accidental audience. With their short colorful dress- es, Pussy Riot tap into the modern-day formulaic female performance as non- threatening ambience to get access to their performance venue. When they take the podium at a private fashion show at a Moscow mansion (Fig. 1), the models, arms akimbo, look down on them with scorn, taking them for incom- petent competitors, but competitors all the same. Pussy Riot look like young shapely women, and the audience does not mind giving them a listen, expect- ing relaxing entertainment. Pussy Riot members exploit and derail the typical Russian female singer im- age following their inspirer Judith Butler. Butler argued that gender is not a law of nature but an act of copying gender models shaped by cultural practices. She called for performative acts that decompose these “normal,” “original” gen- der categories.2 Pussy Riot explain their androgynous stage image: “something 1 Pussy Riot, ‘Meeting Pussy Riot,’ interview by Harry Langston, Vice (March 12, 2012), http:// www.vice.com/read/A-Russian-Pussy-Riot (accessed 2 December 2016). 2 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (London: Routledge, 1999), 176 and 187. transculturalDownloaded studies from 13 Brill.com10/01/2021 (2017) 264-286 02:15:09AM via free access <UN> Pussy Riot and the Translatability of Cultures 267 looking like a woman but having no female face or hair.”3 In 1973 Lynda Benglis, another inspirer of the collective, burst into the art world with a similar gender travesty performance in her series of artist publicity photos. Photographed in a suit caressing a Porsche, she wears a man’s bearing and gaze – complacent, confident, not seeking to please, as “the ultimate mockery of the pinup and the macho.”4 Another inspirer, artist Valie Export, walked into an art movie theater in crotchless pants, parading her genitalia at the face level of the audience in “Action Pants: Genital Panic” (1968), in order to protest the cinematic packag- ing of the female body as passive. In another performance, “Tap and Touch Cinema,” Valie Export invited passersby to explore her naked upper body con- cealed under an open-front box covered by curtains. The performance was meant as a “step towards becoming a subject”5 for women. Like these first-wave feminists, Pussy Riot do not smile. Shulamite Firestone, another of their in- spirers, described women’s readiness to smile as a “nervous tic,” “acquiescence to [their] own oppression.”6 Following these pioneers of feminism, Pussy Riot fashion their bodies and body language as a parody and weapon to challenge the subordination of women. Why conceal their faces with balaclavas if they expect to be, and are, de- tained by the police during their unsanctioned performances? Santiago Sierra, another artist Pussy Riot name as their inspirer, uses concealment to attract attention to people who usually go unnoticed. He pays migrant workers to sit hidden for hours in large cardboard boxes displayed at art exhibits. Hidden in a box and displayed as an art object, an object of luxury, these people acquire a visibility for the general public which they do not have when they are physi- cally visible and available to talk. The man Sierra paid to live hidden for 365 hours behind a brick wall at the MoMA exhibit in New York told the artist that “no one had ever been so interested in him and that he had never met so many people.”7 A young female person is regarded to be of little importance in Russia, so concealing her with a balaclava paradoxically heightens her visibility. 3 Ekaterina Samutsevich, interview by Ksenia Sobchak, Snob (19 November 2012) http://snob .ru/selected/entry/53946 (accessed 2 December 2016). 4 Lynda Benglis, ‘Lynda Benglis: Now You Are Ready,’ The Guardian (22 February 2012) http:// www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/22/lynda-benglis-uk-retrospective-interview (accessed 2 December 2016). 5 Roswitha Mueller, Valie Export: Fragments of the Imagination (Bloomington, in: Indiana up, 1994), 17. 6 Shulamite Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (New York: Mac- millan, 1970), 90. 7 Santiago Sierra, interview by Teresa Margolles, Bomb Magazine 86 (Winter 2004) http:// bombmagazine.org/article/2606 (accessed 2 December 2016). transcultural studies 13 (2017) 264-286 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:15:09AM via free access <UN> 268 Dzero and Bystrova What is more, women all over the world can don a balaclava and become Pussy Riot.