Pussy Riot, the provocative, political Russian punk band, came to Washington Square Park Wednesday to deliver a stern warning: “Wake up, America!”
Their faces hidden behind red ski masks, six members of the feminist art collective marched down Fifth Ave. and into the Greenwich Village park around 1 p.m. Standing in front of the Washington Square Arch, they unfurled two large banners bearing messages: “Don’t Give Up” and “Freedom of Speech?”
Two other members of the group held up a rotating collection of placards with phrases like “Fever Dream,” “1984” and “Great Again: The Greatest Greatness But Mine Is Greater (Again).”
“We’ve been imprisoned in Russia,” said band member Masha Alyokhina. “We’ve been persecuted. We are in federal wanted lists in our country. So if we appear on the border, we’ll be immediately arrested for our anti-Putin and anti-war — [a war] which he started — activities.
“We are here now because we see the [rise] of authoritarian[ism] here. We want to call people to not be silent and we want people to remember to not to give up, even in the difficult conditions — to have hope inside, to have belief.”
Alyokhina served 21 months in prison in Russia after the band was accused of “hooliganism” for performing in a Moscow cathedral in 2012. Two years later, they were attacked by Cossacks with whips and pepper spray at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
In October 2016, with Donald Trump on the verge of winning his first term as U.S. president, the anti-authoritarian band released a song and video, “Make America Great Again,” featuring the refrain, “Let other people in/ Listen to your women/ Stop killing Black children/ Make America great again.”
Claudia Emilyn Schwalb, 72, a visual artist and longtime Village resident who was enjoying her usual “park time,” said she was honored to have seen Pussy Riot, albeit briefly.
“I had no idea they were going to be here,” she said. “I’m thrilled. I like everything in art that’s liberal. … They’re stubborn exhibitionists.”
Pussy Riot’s park action coincides with the start of their North American tour, which kicks off Thursday in Montreal. On May 2, they’ll play at The Hall at Elsewhere, in Brooklyn.
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