Generation Jeans
17th March 2006
Generation Jeans is an autobiographical monologue for two – an actor and a DJ – about rock music and resistance, written and performed by BFT’s co-founding Artistic Director Nicolai Khalezin with music by DJ Laurel. When Belarus was part of the Soviet Union its people were banned from wearing jeans and listening to rock music. The buying or selling of either one could result in arrest at the hands of the KGB. Detained during a demonstration in 2004, Khalezin offers a candid account of the degradations of incarceration, the blossoming of young love and how denim became a symbol of freedom under dictatorship.
Watch a clip of Generation Jeans here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038x4v1
GALLERY
“You go to the theatre to hear a story; you end up having met a man who, in his mixture of self-mockery and seriousness, shows a spiritual resilience that makes dictatorship look even more inflexible and absurd”
The Guardian, 18 February 2008