Pussy Riot to Receive the 2023 Woody Guthrie Prize

The Woody Guthrie Center announced on Thursday (March 23) that Pussy Riot will be honored with the 2023 Woody Guthrie Prize later this spring.

The ceremony is set to take place on May 6 as part of the Tulsa, Okla.-based center’s 10-year anniversary celebration. Pussy Riot members Masha Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova will accept the award from the late folk music legend’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, inside Tulsa’s Cain Ballroom before they and their bandmates perform their latest multimedia show, titled Riot Days, for the first time in the U.S.

“It feels fitting to be awarded in the spirit of Woody, I think he would love Pussy Riot’s anti-fascist message,” Tolokonnikova told Billboard after the news was announced.

“As artists who, like Woody Guthrie, have the courage of their convictions, there are no
contemporary artists more worthy of this recognition than Pussy Riot,” added Woody Guthrie Center director Cady Shaw in a separate statement. “They have paid a very personal price for speaking their
minds on the most serious issues of our time, yet they continue to fight for justice and freedom.”

According to a release, the Woody Guthrie Prize is “given annually to an artist who best exemplifies Woody Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change.” Over the last decade, the honor has also been bestowed upon the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Mavis Staples, John Mellencamp, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Baez, Norman Lear and more.

Earlier this month, Tolokonnikova also helped raise nearly $7 million for relief efforts in Ukraine by partnering with UkraineDAO on an NFT of the besieged country’s flag in the midst of its ongoing war with Russia.