There seemed to be particular spatial parameters in which this demonstration (of punishment) took place. During the trial, the women--Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova--were held in a glass cell, necessarily contained, as if their hooliganism might harm courtroom bystanders, however fully visible, completely on display. A kind of aquarium of judicial performance and public shaming, the glass cell also proved to be a space of (continued) resistance. Unable to be heard behind the glass pane, the women still appropriate the space as one of demonstration: ¡No pasarán! is shouted from Tolokonnikova's shirt and their occasional smiles show them as unapologetic participants in this absurd performance.
For a band that might be considered "only nominally a band," their relative power lies in a primarily visible resistance. The act which scored them two years in prison might even be reduced to simply being present, as women lipsyncing in bright masks and short dresses, in a cathedral. This isn't instrinsically wrong, but wrong because they were seen in that space. Here, their resistance is still visible, still performed, but contained and recontextualized by a system of power. Or at least, that was the intention. The Russian courts/state/Putin seems to have offered Pussy Riot a second stage in the glass cell, broadening the riot to not only the realm of Russian national discourse, but to the overwhelming scrutiny of a global public, who are not only consuming and reacting to their message, but re-performing it in real space.
