Museum Songspiel: The Netherlands 20XX (2011) Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) Ольга Егорова Цапля

Film by Chto Delat?; 2011 Director: Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) Music: Mikhail Krutik Set: Dmitry Vilensky and Natalya Pershina (Gluklya) Costumes: Natalya Pershina (Gluklya) Choreography: Nina Gasteva Script: Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) and Dmitry Vilensky The fourth songspiel by Chto Delat? represents a similar new form of contemporary tragedy as the first three musicals of the “Songspiel-triptych”. But whereas the first three productions were based on accounts of historical events the “Museum-Songspiel” realized in a tradition of dystopia film. The script takes place against the backdrop of an imaginary scenario of Dutch politics in the year 20XX, where all immigrants have been banned from the country. The first scene – which in contrast to all most other scenes of the film was shot on location at the Van Abbemuseum – shows a Museum’s guard who is controlling the galleries. The dramatic soundtrack accompanying the scene seems to anticipate his confusion, when stumbling upon a group of illegal immigrants, who have sought refuge in a large display case designed for street art incorporated into the museum. The museum seems to be the only institution in which they hope to be able to evade their deportation. The situation reminiscent of a (human) zoo, where one group is separated from another through a large glass wall, is finally resolved when the museum director tells the outraged journalist, that the museum never intended to hide the immigrants from the authorities in the first place, rather they were merely hired as actors for a performance. The film raises the frightening question of which particular role the museum and therefore also art might be forced to play under political circumstances borrowed from the realities of Russian current political situation. The film is a kind of acid test on how socially concerned art might operate under severe pressure of control by nationalistic populist governments.