Kazakh Play Alludes To Zhanaozen Violence

The dystopian play "Avalanche" by a prominent Kazakh dissident theater director, Bolat Atabaev, was staged on March 15 in Almaty to a warm public reception. The play indirectly addresses the unrest in the western town of Zhanaozen, where at least 16 people were shot dead by police in mid-December. "Avalanche" is about a remote village in the mountains where locals live in constant fear of an avalanche, following all instructions from the community's elders to avoid provoking a deadly avalanche. But life in the village is disrupted by a protest, which leads the residents to lose their fear.