Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) is Europe’s most celebrated theatre company in exile. Its play Dogs of Europe, first performed underground in Minsk in 2019 and then again at London’s Barbican in 2022, comes to the Adelaide Festival 2-6 March. The play is based on a novel by Alhierd Bacharevič, which was banned in Belarus. Bacharevič will speak about Dogs of Europe in person in two events at Adelaide Festival’s Writers’ Week, ‘A Writer in Exile’ and ‘Russia Now and Then’.
In the past, BFT had been a guest of La MaMa theatre in New York, as well as developing close ties to London’s Young Vic and Almeida Theatre. In Australia, company directors Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada also wrote and directed Trustees for the Malthouse Theatre in 2018. Their black humour and devotion to high artistic purpose have made the pair a cause célèbre on a global scale.
