«Airport»

About the Performance

Consider these questions:

If we place people with entirely different views on life, the country and politics into a confined space, do you think a constructive dialogue is possible?
Are the verbal debates we are so used to conducting online - without ever facing our opponent - still possible when we meet face to face?
And is it, in today’s world, truly possible to convince someone to change their point of view?

ARTiШOК Theatre invites you to take part in a social experiment. Together with the characters of «Airport», you will find yourself for one evening inside Almaty International Airport, where a planned departure is suddenly interrupted by an emergency and an evacuation. Instead of boarding a flight, both passengers and the audience become unexpectedly locked inside a storage area of the new terminal.

As the characters begin to talk, it becomes clear that many of those trapped are well-known public figures - civil society representatives, scholars, officials, bloggers, journalists and others. Under extraordinary pressure, a heated debate erupts about Kazakhstan’s present and its future.
Will the passengers of Flight 3980 manage to reach common ground and honestly answer the question: «Why am I not leaving my country?»

«The performance ‘Airport’ shakes off our stereotypes, stripping us back to who we really are - with our history, our pain and our anxiety.»

exclusive.kz, October 2024

«Immersive theatre has no fixed starting point. The performance assembles itself like a puzzle the moment the audience steps into the foyer - or rather, into the airport’s departure lounge. The flight schedule glows on the board, and the duty dispatcher informs you of a delay…»

esquire.kz, February 2025

About the Director: Galina Pyanova is a graduate of the Department of Arts at Saint Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is a director, founder and artistic director of ARTiШOК Theatre, one of Kazakhstan’s leading theatre-makers, a laureate of the Russian National Theatre Award «Golden Mask», and a master of the actor-director training course in «Fundamentals of Directing».

Her productions have been featured at major festivals around the world, including High Fest (Armenia), Sibiu (Romania), NET Festival and the International Festival of Theatre Improvisation (Netherlands), TAMPERE (Finland), Kijimuna Festa (Okinawa, Japan), THEATER DER WELT (Germany), Sens Interdit and Off Avignon (France), among others.

About the Playwright: Djamila Aman (Satybaldieva) is a playwright and author of «Airport». She also works in communications and PR, and writes books for children. Her new book «Ai and Her Team» is currently being prepared for publication.
Djamila holds a Master’s degree in Writing for Stage and Screen from City University London. Alongside her literary and dramatic work, she is engaged in film studies and is a member of the Kazakh Academy of Film Scholars. Her writing explores themes of memory, identity and social change.