For the 12th year in a row, the very popular Faces&Laces festival runs this weekend at Gorky Park. The festival is all about street culture, fashion, sport, subcultures, custom cars and motorcycles and alternative contemporary art. This year’s theme is sub-cultural cooperation, and that means that brands, street artists and musicians will collaborate to create something new.
You can get into the festival right at the main entrance to the park, where a fragment of a concrete wall will be painted by special guests and graffiti artists from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.
Concerts start at about 2 p.m. and run through the evenings both days. Acts include the band The Garden from California and the Russian group Pasosh. On Sunday you can hear Boulevard Depo, the founder of the Russian new school hip-hop, at 8 p.m. followed by the biggest name on the list, Princess Nokia, a 26-year-old rapper and activist from New York at 9 p.m.
This year there is a special program on the subcultures in Scandinavia. Dancers from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway will show off their break-dancing skills. Local break-dancers can take a master class or try their talents in the Nordance Battle. Winners will get all kinds of prizes and have a chance to score a trip to either Sweden or Finland.
If you don’t want to dance, you can watch a virtual reality film about Swedish music, check out cool Finnish designer clothing and a library of books about street culture up north. There will also be plenty of food, clothing and other stands around the stage area.
9 Krymsky Val. Metro Oktyabrskaya, Park Kultury. For more information and schedule, see the Faces&Laces site. Entrance is free.
