Theater

Ihnat Bujnicki is credited as being the creator of Belarusian theater, which also started to become more well-known in the early 1900s. However, some well-known plays from the 19th century include Dunin-Pinskaja and Marcynkevi's Liachta. One of Yanka Kupala's most well-known pieces, Paulinka, was performed in Siberia for the Belarusians who were being transferred there. Folk music from Belarus has been recorded since at least the 15th century. Skomorokhs were the primary occupation for musicians before that. Up to the 16th century, Orthodox church music utilized a neumatic chant known as znamenny, which comes from the Russian word znamena, which means sign or neume. This was followed by two centuries of musical innovation that borrowed from the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.

Partesnoe penie, or part singing, became popular for choruses in the 17th century, and then private theaters started popping up in towns like Vitebsk and Minsk. Pesniary, Dreamlin, and NRM are examples of well-known Belarusian musical ensembles. There are currently 70 orchestras, 27 travelling professional theater companies, and 15 concert promotion organizations in Belarus. Playwrights Nikolai Khalezin and Natalya Kolyada established the Belarus Free Theatre in 2005. This underground theater enterprise aims to fend against pressure and censorship from the Belarusian government. The group performs in homes, and special police forces from Belarus broke up at least one of these performances. Famous Western playwrights like Tom Stoppard, Edward Bond, Václav Havel, Arthur Kopit, and Harold Pinter have lent their support to the Belarus Free Theatre.