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Figure 1. Author shows half finished knitting of a baiaclava. Courtesy the a uthor
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This aiaciava Is Too Hot
arbara rowning
Violetta Volkova, a member of the legal defense team of Pussy Riot,
reached out and felt the balaclava I was knitting. I was using some bulky,
organic, forest-green wool, and if I do say so myself it was shaping
up pretty nicely. Volkova thought so, too: she nodded and gave me an
approving thrust of her chin. But then she added, through a translator:
It looks good, but it's going to be too hot. Well, maybe it's good for
Siberia in the winter. Also, they don't make theirs like that, you know.
They just get a shirt or a stocking and rip out the eyeholes and the
mouthholes.
We were in a small meeting room at New York University School of
Law, preparing for a forum on the Pussy Riot case. It was 21 September
2012, after the 7 August sentencing and shortly before the group's sched-
uled appeal, which would resu lt in the suspension of the sentence of Yekat-
erina Samutsevich bu t the upho lding of those of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
and Maria Alyokhina. The legal defense team had come to the United
States to draw a ttention to the case, and I had been invited to pose a ques-
tion relating to the performance aspects of their action in the Cathedral
of Christ the Savior. During the forum, the lawyers seemed particularly
intent on countering the legal claims against the women, citing a statute
that specifically laid out the appropriate punishment for the disruption of
a religious service: a nominal administrative fine—nothing approaching
the severe prison terms the women had been handed. The lawyers' main
preoccupation was in demonstrating that the judicial response was clearly
politically motivated.
Mark Feygin, another member of the defense team, enumerated
counterarguments to the charges of blasphemy and hooliganism (some
of the women considered themselves to be active members of the Russian
Orthodox Church; they weren't actually standing on the altar but rather
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Figure 2. Screen shot of YouTube video of New York University School of Law forum,
Pussy Riot and Protest: The Future of Dissent in Putin's Russia and Beyond, 21 Septem ber 201 2,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZSCvAHL_ZU
in front of it there's no actual prohibition for women to be there, it's just
not part of Orthodox tradition; they were only there for forty seconds;
it wasn't blasphemous; it wasn't violent; they didn't resist or violate the
ritu al; this was a short and inoffensive political statement . . . ). I'd asked
whether their action might actually be better understood as, in fact, not
antireligious, but indeed as an act of faith, if
one
were to take seriously the
notion of
feminist prayer. This suggestion seemed to go over like a lead
balloon. Somehow, both faith and feminism got lost in the shuffle of legal-
isms and a more generalized despair over Putin's strategies for clamping
down on the opposition.
Th e other thing tha t got pretty rapidly dismissed was the notion that
what Pussy Riot did in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior had any kind
of aesthetic value.' One audience member asked about the nature ofthe
performance— was it lip-synching? Did that m atter? Feygin responded that
the women had intended to perform, but he pretty categorically dismissed
what they did s an act of art, shrugg ing off w hat he considered the idiotic
choreography, in my opinion (this got a good laugh ). He allowed as how
there's no accounting for taste, but it seemed clear that any question of
artistic potency, along with specifically feminist political content, was of
minimal interest alongside the primary concern regarding the silencing
of Putin's opposition.
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Th is response echoed many of the com ments I had heard at another
Pussy Riot panel that had been convened at N Y U one week earlier, at the
Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. I spoke briefiy at that
event about the relationship between Pussy Riot and prior radical musical
and performance art actions, such as AC T U P's Stop the C hurch action
at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989. While the audience appeared largely
sympathetic to Pussy Riot's political message, as they understood it, a
num ber of people expressed concern about the choice to relay it in a house
of worship. But more than this, they seemed highly skeptical about the
performance's artistic merits.
I must
say,
each time aesthetic objections w ere raised, it really threw
me for a loop. If Pussy Riot's choreography didn't count as dance, what
would these people make of so much of the downtown choreography I
go to see as a dance scholar on a regular basis? Pussy Riot's ecstatic fist-
pum ping, culm inating in the stunningly heartfelt prostration of one dancer
before the altar, was reminiscent of the m ost gripping m oments of a perfor-
mance by Miguel Gutierrez that I had seen recently at St. M ark's Ch urch.
But even if one had
a
certain resistance to (apparently) nonvirtuosic cho re-
ography, how could anybody deny the interest of the song Pu nk Prayer ?
I'd had to pay pretty close attention to the song's musical structure and
arrang em ent, as well as to its lyrics, because I had made a ukulele cover of
it. Tha t's kind of
a
long story— it is pa rt of
a
sort of conceptual art project
I had launched that year, making an inordinate number of sentimental,
warbling covers of both likely and unlikely ditties as gifts for people. They
ranged from jazz standards and French chansons to Nicki Minaj, Insane
Clown Posse, and , well. Pussy R iot. I can 't lay claim to expertise on any of
these musical idioms or artists. Th at was kind of the point. I had a couple
of other tun es in my catalog that m ight be broadly con strued as pro to- or
post-punk (some early Iggy Pop I had made for an old friend named
Lenny, and a Hole cover I had done for Karen Finley), but I'm really not
an aficionado. Still, I loved doing Pun k Prayer.
A lot of people here seem to have read the lyrics in translation, but
perhaps didn't pay particularly close attention to the song's musical struc -
ture.
It opens with a liturgical melody, replete with hymnal harmonies.
Th is refrain is repeated in the middle and at the end of the song, while the
verses are comprised of antifascist, explicitly feminist prayer—extremely
clever wordplay delivered in two alternating Sprechstimme voices: a
growling alto, and a piercing, girlish shriek.̂ Of cou rse, popular concep-
tions of punk vocal performance are often confirmed by musicians'
self
depiction, and the case of Pussy Riot is no exception. Pussy R iot member,
G arad zha , not among those arrested, was quoted in the
oscow
News
(a quote that was subsequently picked up by the Western press) saying:
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You don't have to sing very well. It's punk. You just scream a lot. ^ But
of course the ostensible lack of technique can be performed with varying
degrees of proficiency—and effectiveness. The juxtaposition of complex
liturgical harmonies with screed-like growled and shrieked feminist oratory
implicitly asks you to consider all those issues I said audiences seemed most
adamantly to want
to
ignore: the relationship between faith, feminism, and
performance aesthetics.
I am also no expert in Russian liturgical music, although I did my
best in
my
little uke cover
to
replicate the harm onies accurately. It
w s
only
after I spoke at the Jordan Cen ter, however, that I learned of the source of
the refrain. M inutes after the panel ended, I received an
e mail
from Katya
Ermolaev, a PhD candidate in musicology at Princeton who's writing a
dissertation on Prokofiev, but was also preparing a conference presenta-
tion on Pussy Riot and Russian liturgical music. She had listened to the
live feed of the panel from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where
she held a fellowship. I did realize, she asked, that the hymnal section of
Pu nk Prayer was based on one ofth e movements from Rachm aninoff's
Vespers Um , no. But that was pretty interesting. Still, it would be entirely
naive to think that the point was to juxtapose rea l music (the refrain)
with antimusic in the screed-like verses, just
as,
to my mind, it would be a
misreading to understand the action at Christ the Savior as antireligious.
Th ere is something equally com pelling in the shifts between two women's
voices there—one menacingly deep, one arrestingly shrill—as there is in
the harmonized hymnal voices. In fact, they are the same voices. That's
kind of the point.
I realize there is a certain parallel between making these kinds of
musicological observations about the construc tion of Pu nk Prayer and
crafting a little handmade ukulele cover of the song that hopes to repli-
cate its harmonic and also dramatic contrasts in miniature. That is, there
is something maybe disconcertingly domesticating about both of these
gestures. And maybe there is also a parallel to knitting a balaclava out of
organic wool, when the proper spirit of the thing would be to just rip the
eyeholes and the mouthhole out of a neon stocking. Maybe the proper spirit
of Pu nk Pray er can really only be achieved by embracing, rather than
denying, the destructive potential of antimusicality, just s the spirit o fthe
balaclava can only be achieved thro ugh ripping thin gs up .
Violetta Volkova was right that day about one thing. My hand-knit
balaclava really was too hot. T here 's no way I could have sat through tha t
forum at the NY U Law School with that thing on my head— though my
law school colleagues looked at it a little uneasily anyway: You do rea l-
ize, tha t thing 's illegal, somebody nervously joked. And, in fact, after the
forum, a young Occupy activist approached m e to ask how much I knew
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Figure
3
Photo
of
author
in
hand knit balaclava. Courtesy the author
about the New York mask laws. I hadn t known much, but I did by the end
of that afternoon.
Of
course, what those laws tell you
is
that statutes
are
invoked here, as in Russia, when actions are viewed as a potential political
threat.
Here s the clause in question from N.Y. PEN. LAW
240.35: NY
Code— Section 240.35: Loitering:
4.
Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire
or facial alteration, loiters, remains
or
congregates
in a
public place with
other
persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons
so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such con-
duct is not unlawful w hen
it
occurs in connection with a masquerade party
or like
entertainment
if
when
such
entertainment is
held
in
city which has
promulgated regulations
in
connection with such affairs, permission is first
obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities.
The Occupy activist who approached me at the law school w as, needless
to say, interested in the topic because of the use of Guy Fawkes masks in
the movement. As with many aspects ofthe Occupy movement, there are
divergent interpretations
of
the significance
of
the use
of
this particular
mask. Some reference the historical figure of Guy Fawkes as a symbol
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of resistance to a corrupt or oppressive government, some distance the
movement from a possible association with violence that Guy Fawkes
might invoke, others appreciate the gallows humor they find in the popu-
lar cultural source of a graphic novel, while a few express concern that
Warner Bros, owns the copyright on what some consider the face of the
movement. But the particular woman who expressed her concern to me
about the legality of masked protest was more interested in the possibility
of anonymity and group affiliation—the I am Spartacus maneuver—
which has been the primary tactical explanation of the use of masks
among various twentieth- and twenty-first-century protest movements,
including the Zapatistas, the black blocs of the antiglobalization move-
ment, and, of course. Pussy Riot.
Subcomandante Marcos has famously waxed poetic on the ideo-
logical implications of facelessness. He released a video communiqué in
which he proposed to show his face, holding up a mirror and proceeding
to unmask himself only to reveal a series of faces of various races, ages,
and genders.
Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe,
a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a
Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal... a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy
in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on
the Metro at 10 pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums,
an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in
the mountains.'
El Sup's interest in the political potentiality of the mask contrasts, of
course, with a straightforward notion of what Marx might have intended
in referencing the falsehood associated with the Charaktermaske—a notion
succinctly put forth by David Harvey: Once [capitalism's] mask is torn
off and its mysteries have been laid bare, it is easier to see what has to be
done and why, and how to set about doing it. ^ But Marcos's mask is a
mask of another order: a mask that simultaneously reveals the false face
of neoliberalism even as it understands that one will never arrive at a truly
naked face—nor perhaps should one hope to. Slavoj Zizek, who has hardly
been one to celebrate Marcos's poetics or his tactics, appears, at least on
this point, to concur:
We must avoid the simple metaphors of de-masking, of throwing away the
veils which are supposed to hide the naked reality. We can see why Lacan, in
his Seminar
on the
Ethic of Psychoanalysis distances himself from the liberat-
ing gesture of saying finally that the emperor has no clothes. The point
is as Lacan puts it, that the emperor is naked only beneath his clothes, so
if there is an unmasking gesture of psychoanalysis, it is closer to Alphonse
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Figure 4. Screen shot of Subcomandante Marcos from YouTube video Subcomandante Marcos sin
p s mont ñ s www .youtube.com/watch?v=qRnoJt7P TDE accessed 8 May 2013)
Allais's well-known joke, quoted by Lacan: somebody points at a woman
and utters a horrified cry, Look at her, what a shame, under her clothes,
she is totally n aked. '
The closing statements of Samutsevich, Tolokonnikova, and Alyo-
khina at their trial repeatedly gestured toward this counterlogical logic.
The theatricality of their action in the church was an attempt to alert
churchgoers to the ways in which Putin was stagecrafting their reli-
gious experience in order to manipulate them politically. The ostensible
obscenity of the group's music was an attempt to reveal the obscenity of
the church's complicity with a corrupt state. And on the masks: Maria
Alyokhina said, Th is trial is not only a malignant and grotesque mask, it
is the 'face' o fthe governm ent's dialogue with the people of our country. *
If mask is to reveal something, is it necessary for it to perform its
own capacity for destruction? Do the eyeholes and mouthholes need to
be gouged out? M ust we insist on the antimusicality of Pu nk Prayer in
order to see its political potential? Or is the interest, maybe, in recognizing
the speciousness of such a division—between theatricality and antithe atri-
cality, masking and unmasking , musicality and antimusicality? After the
minor craft debacle of my too-hot hand-knit balaclava, I decided to go fur-
ther down the path of domestication, rather than turn ing back. I got some
lighter-weight yarn, and started up a little cottage industry: balaclavas for
the size 2- 6X set, wee unrelenting feminists. T hey are cool, lightweight.
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Figure 5 Minifeminist in balaclava Courtesy the author
colorful and
they stretch when the grrrls start to grow. Which they will.
I'm still taking orders.
Notes
1. Pussy Riot has consistently and continuously insisted that, in the words
of Yekaterina S am utsevich, It was an act of feminist art and should be treate d as
such. I find the te-rras feminist and ar t equally significant. Quoted in Marlow Stern,
Sundan ce's Best Docume ntary: 'Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, ' Newsweek/The Daily
Beast 26 Janua ry 2013, w ww .thedailybeast .com/art icles/2013/01/26/sund ance-s
-best-documentary-pussy-riot-a-punk-prayer.html.
2. Sprechstimme is a style of vocalization between speech and song. The style
is associated with the Second Viennese School, and it was notably employed by Kurt
Weill.
3. James Brooke, Moscow G rrrl Band Sets Krem lin 's Teeth on Ed ge,
Voice of America I Russia Watch 19 M arch 2012, blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch
/2012 /03/19 /. Brooke elaborates that the group is open to women recru its with
limited m usical talents.
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4.
N.Y. PE N. LAW § 240.35: NY Code— Section 240 .35: Loitering, Find-
Law, codes. lp.f indlaw.eom/nycod e/PEN /THR EE/N /240/240.35 (accessed 19 April
2013).
5.
Ma rcos Is Gay, Social Justice (zine), no. 27, 19 October 1997, rpt. Green
Left, 5 Novem ber 1997, w ww .greenleft.org.au/node/16118.
6. David Harvey,
The Enigma of Capital and the rises of apitalism
(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010), 260.
7. Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (Lond on: Verso, 1989), 28.
8. M aria Alyokhina's closing statemen t, Puss y Riot Closing Stateme nts,
t rans. Mari jeta Bozovic, Maksim Hanukai and Sasha Senderovich, n 1 magazine,
13 Aug ust 2012 , npluson em ag.com /pussy-riot-closing-statements.
ocial Text
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C o p y r i g h t o f S o c i a l T e x t i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f D u k e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s a n d i t s c o n t e n t m a y n o t b e
c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s
e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l a r t i c l e s f o r
i n d i v i d u a l u s e .