CARIES OF CAPITALISM: ARTISTIC STATEMENTS FOR INDENT
Ada Mukhina, Alena Papina, Daria Iuriichuk and Olga Tarakanova
Caries of Capitalism was born as a joke about the similar pronunciation of the words ‘caries’ and ‘precarious’ (in English, one mostly speaks of ‘cavity’; in Russian, it is ‘caries’) in a lunchtime conversation between five artists, during a week-long BlackBox Residency at the Meyerhold Theatre Centre in Moscow, unpaid and providing no food and accommodation. Now, it is a collaborative theatre piece by Ada Mukhina, Alena Papina, Daria Iuriichuk and Olga Tarakanova, funded by a government subsidy and dealing with the issue of exploitation in the Russian theatre industry. We all come from different backgrounds, but each of us deals with precarity one way or the other: Ada as an independent theatre director and, as she calls herself, a ‘nomadic artist’ constantly travelling inside Russia and also to Germany, the UK, the USA etc., Alena as a freelance choreographer and dance teacher, Daria as a freelance choreographer and a visiting lecturer at the university, and Olga as a freelance theatre critic and a final year BA student with vague job perspectives.
One of the slides we show during the performance. It explains that we pay a half of ticketing fees to the Meyerhold Centre as a production house, a quarter (minus the taxes) goes to provide fees for everyone who is on stage (7 persons) and a quarter goes to a winner.
However, with Caries of Capitalism, we aimed not only to share our personal experience and concerns, but to raise the general awareness of precarity and to mobilise the community. So we invited four more precarious theatre workers to join our team. During the rehearsal month of (modestly) paid work, they designed their projects addressing precarity and exploitation. On stage, they present their ideas to the public, and compete for a quarter of the money earned from tickets, while Alena, Daria and Olga provide information on precarity and reflect on whether Caries of Capitalism could be considered less exploitative than ‘BlackBox Residency’, or if the performance is just another project that disguises bad working conditions as subversive art.
Here, we share our artistic statements (or rather, artistic reflections) on why it was so important for each of us to join Caries of Capitalism. We all mention our practical and theoretical background, institutional positions and political agendas. Working on Caries of Capitalism collaboratively was for us an attempt to join our forces in a common fight. At the same time, we often felt like we actually contradicted one another irresolvably. We hope that this interplay of solidarity and tension shines through our texts and that they themselves can be read as an example of how to act together.
Discourse on Precarity: A Russian Perspective, by Olga Tarakanova
Precarity in Moscow’s contemporary dance scene by Alena Papina
A statement by Daria Iuriichuk
Olga and Daria while lecturing on precarity and on the structure of the ‘BlackBox Residency’. The slide reads, ‘artistic genius — yes, passion — yes, dreams — yes, ‘, listing the stereotypical attributes of young artists.