Published
Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 12:30
- Scheduled for September in Armenia, the event uses Russian ticketing platform Tickets Cloud.
Several artists have cancelled performances at Armenia's Sensor Festival after it emerged it has ties to Russia.
The event initially booked 41 artists to play from September 10th through 12th in Mount Aragats. But six of these—Job Sifre, Animistic Beliefs, Jane Fitz, DJ Bone, Andrew Pekler and Rabih Beaini—have since cancelled over Sensor's connections to Russia.
The connections to Russia include the festival's ticketing partner, Moscow-based start-up Tickets Cloud, as well as alleged ties to Moscow venue Mutabor, which has promoted Sensor on its Telegram channel. The venue is reportedly owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Danilov.
Speaking to Resident Advisor, Job Sifre said he "won't ever put my own interests of performing gigs and making money above the feelings or safety of my Ukrainian colleagues and the Ukrainian community. I didn't see much harm at first as the event is taking place in Armenia. This was clearly something I should've investigated more before saying yes. There are Russian people working for the festival and that means there's a chance money being earned will end up in Russia, which is a chance I'd rather not risk. For me it's more about that than whether or not there are ties to Danilov, as that's very hard to definitively rule out or prove."
Rabih Beaini, FKA Morphosis, told RA he doesn't believe Sensor's organisers displayed solidarity for Ukraine. "I knew about the Russian ties, I know the promoters very well, since back in the ARMA17 days," he said. "One of them is cofounder of ARMA and Mutabor, and my contact (as far as until 2019) was the booker of Mutabor. Probably still is. She assured me the festival money is coming from the tickets, no ties to Mutabor or any Russian investors money. Then they announced the festival [and] we all discover that Mutabor is actually part of it, promoting the event on their platforms."
He added: "The festival didn't make a public statement. The way to do it would have been to officially say they have no connection to Mutabor and the investor, and sadly this isn't the truth. So I decided to just pull out of this mess."
Sensor has also faced backlash from Ukraine's clubbing community. Several artists and people connected to the scene called out the festival via Instagram, including Poly Chain, Pavel Plastikk and human margareeta (Full disclosure: human margareeta works at RA). Journalist Maya Bakalova accused Sensor of having ties to Mutabor. Although posts by Kyiv club Closer and its record store don't directly mention Sensor, they both reiterate the need to avoid working with Russian-affiliated events or promoters. Earlier this year, dozens of Ukrainian venues, promoters and artists signed a letter calling for a boycott of Russian cultural actors who don't "actively resist the actions of their government."
RA reached out to Sensor, which responded to say that attacks against the festival and its artists were part of a "coordinated social media smearing campaign" and that accusations against the event are false.
"Sensor is not financed by Mutabor," the spokesperson said. "The truth is, Sensor is targeted by the same people who promote hate against Mutabor solely because that institution is Russian."
While Sensor is a registered Armenian company, the spokesperson added, the decision to use Tickets Cloud instead of local operators was made because a limited number of payment platforms cover markets like Europe, Asia, Armenia's neighbouring states and Russia.
"The Sensor community comprises mostly artists," the spokesperson said. "While some are from Russia, many are from Armenia, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK."
The spokesperson said the purpose of the festival was to put Armenia on the map as a "modern" cultural travel destination. The plan had been in the works for the past four years alongside local promoter MOCT in Armenia's capital, Yerevan.
"Sensor is an international underground movement representing freedom for those who don't fit the system," they added. "Our community strives to unite people, spread love and make the world a better place. We believe the core values of underground electronic music culture will prevail and hope people behind the attack will rethink their course of action. Hate has no future."
The spokesperson added that the festival has been clear about its solidarity for Ukrainian people. "The festival is planned as an event that would unite people," they said. Ukrainian artists were invited to play, the spokesperson added, but they refused out of "fear" of the backlash. "We wanted to invite four other [Ukrainian] artists too but were strongly advised against it because of the toxic environment."
Armenia and Russia have a close political relationship and both countries are part of the Russian-led security alliance CSTO. In May, the BBC reported that more than 100,000 Russians had fled to Armenia due to the political climate back home.
Update, July 14th: This piece has been updated with an additional line of quote from Job Sifre.