Excited to be able to share this footage from Flight Over Wasteland, performed live at the Knockdown Center and adapted for film. Directed and adapted by artist Liliya Lifanova from TS Eliot’s poem The Wasteland, filmed by Yoni Goldstein.

This teaser for the film, which debuted this year at the Anthology Film Archives, introduces Philomela, with choreography co-developed with Davy Bisaro, combining delicate and agonizing movements to illustrate her desperate message and inability to speak.

Philomela, the Flight Woman in Eliot’s poem, comes from the Greek story of King Pandion’s daughters who were transformed into the nightingale (Philomela) and the swallow (Procne), to escape Procne’s husband Tereus after he brutally raped Philomela and tore out her tongue so she could tell no one of his wickedness against her.