375 0908 2334. THE BODY YOU ARE CALLING IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE

How can we talk about a feeling of numbness and fear in the face of social repressions? About the disdain for governmental forces and the feeling of guilt experienced by those going into exile? On the backdrop of the 2020 presidential election and the related protests and mass arrests in Belarus, performer and choreographer Igor Shugaleev and artist, curator and director Sergey Shabohin attempt to give an answer to this by means of artistic expression. The performance is supposed to support the protest movement in their country, from exile. It is supposed to provide the anonymised, medialised victim with a face, make the physical experience of those detained comprehensible, to show the incapacitating and ignominious treatment of that what is often described as white torture: Torture that leaves no visible traces. To achieve this, Igor Shugaleev particularly emphasises the re-enactment of stress positions in which the detained often have to remain for hours on end.

The performance title refers to significant numbers:
375: The area code for the Republic of Belarus
0908: The date for the 2020 presidential election
2334: Article of law “infraction against the procedure for the organisation or conduct of mass meetings”, according to which more than forty thousand Belarusians have been sentenced since 2020.