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The Collection
Mikhail Nikolaevich Rozhdestvin, Quiet Please - Rehearsal in Session, Soviet Union, 1991
Four pairs of ballerinas’ legs on a TV screen spell GKChP, the initials of eight hardline officials who tried to overthrow reforming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on August 19, 1991. During the coup, state television ran Swan Lake on a loop. The coup failed in three days, and the Soviet Union collapsed months later. Rozhdestvin sets the plotters inside that broadcast, under a sign asking for quiet during rehearsal. From the Ferris Russian Collection, donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris.