Any protest is, in essence, a theatrical act. When a protester raises a placard, they are doing the same thing that a puppet theater actor did in the Middle Ages, performing in the market square and speaking through a stick puppet.
"No! No! No!" is a conversation about how puppets help us in the struggle for freedom. It is a protest rehearsal in which, in solidarity with brave and outspoken puppets (who have known how to say "no" for centuries), the actress looks for ways to speak / sound together, to find a common rhythm and voice.
Holding a puppet in your hand, you do not speak in its name - you speak through it. Puppets are able to speak for us when words get stuck in our throats.
Director Veronika Abdul-Visocka and the creative team were inspired by Peter Schumann and the theater company Bread and Puppet, with their enormous paper puppets, as well as by texts by Augusto Boal, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jack Halberstam, which express faith in the ability of carnival, masks, and puppets to disrupt authority and hierarchies. Adding their own personal experience, they have created a tribute to all artists, masters, and puppet theater enthusiasts who could not or did not want to become part of the dominant narrative, as well as to those whose voices are also heard today in street protests against patriarchal, colonial, and military violence.
Creative team:
Director: Veronika Abdul-Visocka
Artist: Kristina Rezviha
Music by: Marss The Person
Lighting designer: Māra Aniņa
Movement consultant: Laima Jaunzema
Cast: Malgožata Apse
The production is supported by:
