Wednesday 21 October 2020

The Peacock Theatre Festival for Civil Liberties


The coronavirus outbreak has demanded unprecedented economic, social and public health measures to be put in place by governments across the globe to tackle the spread of the pandemic. But governments worldwide are alarmingly choosing to implement additional draconian authoritarian measures under the pretext of the crisis, rather than the policies needed to protect people. The theatre needs to be clear that our civil liberties are not up for negotiation and organise in defence of them.

Since March 2020, The Common Air Theatre Company has been curating a virtual rolling theatre festival, The Peacock Festival of Civil Liberties, as part of wider solidarity against any such authoritarian creep in the UK and abroad. The name of the festival derives from the phrase that is used to describe the creep currently occurring in Hungary under Viktor Orban. As he explains, his Peacock Dance is a choreographed dance carefully executed which is intended to fool his negotiating partners. His ‘dance’ posits that after removing 100% of our freedoms, gaining back 80% of these freedoms will feel like ‘normalcy’ with scant realisation that the goalpost has moved.

The YouTube page will serve as a rolling repository of pieces that reflect the theme as and when pieces come in.

For the online festival, we are seeking fully produced new & old work that addresses this authoritarian creep [no more than 15 minutes in length]. Please be in touch if you would be interested in being involved in this project - HAHN@HOTMAIL.CO.UK.

 

Pieces can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEC9eZYSmM1QNvqTOv-x_5Q




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