Pussy Riot:
Riot Days

PUSSY RIOT: RIOT DAYS

THE SHOW

A story of resistance, repression and revolution in a mixture of concert, rally, theatre and political happening.

Riot Days is a show, not a concert. Theatre, testimony and live music at once, built from Maria Alyokhina’s books Riot Days and Political Girl, with documentary footage running through the whole performance. Punk, electronics and spoken word, and a story about resisting a dictatorship.

The show was created by producer Alexander Cheparukhin together with Maria Alyokhina and has been on stage since 2016, touring more than forty countries. It has never been a fixed piece: it keeps taking in what is happening in Russia and Ukraine right now, so no two nights are the same. Today it carries the names of political prisoners and an account of Putin’s political and war crimes.

The story is told through Maria Alyokhina’s eyes. She served two years in a penal colony for Punk Prayer, the 2012 protest against Putin inside Moscow’s main cathedral. She stayed in Russia and left only in 2022, forced out after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

PRAISE

„It’s impossible to look away. Powerful and exhilarating“  The Guardian

„New revolutionary electronic punk opera“  Sydney Morning Herald

„Far from being a conventional gig, it is instead a hard-hitting, punk spirited piece of art theatre“  The Argus

ON STAGE

Maria (Masha) Alyokhina

Voice. Author. Member of Pussy Riot.

Sentenced to two years in a penal colony in 2012 for Punk Prayer. She took the prison administration to court over the treatment of inmates and won. She wrote about those years in Riot Days, and about the life that followed in Political Girl. She assembled Velvet Terrorism, the first survey of Pussy Riot’s work, which has travelled from Reykjavik to museums across Europe and North America. In 2025 a Moscow court sentenced her to 13 years in absentia.

Alexander Cheparukhin

Producer. Creator of Riot Days Show

Founder of GreenWave Music. In 2012, when members of Pussy Riot were imprisoned, he mobilised Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Patti Smith, Sting and hundreds more in their support. He brought Maria the idea for the show, found the director and the publishers for her books, and built Riot Days. He opens every single performance himself.

Alina Petrova (Rov)

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, member of Pussy Riot.

The violin that opens the show, alone on stage. Founder of the Kymatic ensemble, working across violin, viola, modular synthesizers and live programming. She completed an MSc in Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. In 2025 a Moscow court sentenced her to 8 years in absentia.

Taso Pletner

Actor, theatre and documentary-theatre director, member of Pussy Riot.

Trained at the Moscow Art Theatre School under Dmitry Brusnikin. His work with Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson opened Velvet Terrorism in Reykjavik and travelled with it to Montreal, Vancouver, Munich and beyond. In 2025 a Moscow court sentenced him to 11 years in absentia.

Eric Breitenbach

Drums and samples. Member of Pussy Riot. Co-founder of New Age Doom.

The drummer driving Riot Days, touring with the production since June 2025. He also provides the live score for Maria Alyokhina’s Political Girl literary performances across Europe and the UK.