2024-10-29
On 31 October 2024, at 7 pm, a screening and presentation of the film ‘Swanback’ by artist, LIAA member Maria Nemčenko will take place in the project space of the cultural center SODAS 2123. The film will be presented by the film producer Rūta Kiaupaitė and the cinematographer Nojus Drąsutis, who will talk about the subtleties of filming a dance work on film. This event is part of the ‘OPEN SODAS: Movement’ programme.
‘Swanback’ is a film that blends fictional and documentary narratives on the interpretation of the swan symbol in the context of British and Russian imperialism. The film portrays a fictional character, played by former classical ballet dancer Oliver Connew. The first part of the film is partially based on interviews with members of the Lithuanian community, who illegally migrated to work in the UK before Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004. The film also responds to an infamous article printed in ‘The Sun’ newspaper in 2003 about Eastern European migrants entitled, ‘Swan Bake: Asylum seekers steal the Queen’s birds for barbecues’. ‘Swanback’s diaristic narrative retells a journey of an illegal economic migrant to the UK where he gets accused of killing and eating the royal swans.
In the second part of the film the camera follows Connew in the dance studio as he attempts to learn from the 1963 video recording of ‘Prince’s solo. Act I’ from ‘Swan Lake’ (1875-76) by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with the highly acclaimed dancer Rudolph Nureyev as Prince Siegfried. A production of ‘Swan Lake’ was shown on TV on repeat during the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev during the fall of the Soviet Union, forever connecting the ballet to political upheaval.
In ‘Swanback’ the tale of the illegal immigrant merges with Connew’s own journey from ballet to semantic dance while overcoming the violence of the imperially constructed art of ballet instilled within his body. Instead of choosing to respond to the violence of ballet altering his body with the violence of amnesia altering his memory, he chooses to accept the scars that ballet left upon him.
Marija Nemčenko is a multidisciplinary artist with a research-based practice in archival material, film, installation, creative and critical writing, and projects connecting socially engaged art to civic life. Her multilayered practice aims to activate the interlinks between migration, nature, and nation-state, while critically attending to the construct of a ‘periphery’. In a world driven by narratives from and about the ‘centre’, she asks what knowledge could arise from the ‘peripheral points’? Marija Nemčenko is a Ph.D. student at Vilnius Art Academy, a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists‘ Association (LIAA) and Scottish Artists Union. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Orlando Museum of Art, Florida, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso, Glasgow International Biennial, Swallow project space, Vilnius, and A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, Palestine.
Nojus Drąsutis is a young generation Lithuanian cinematographer who works extensively with analogue cinema. His latest short film ‘Ootide’ (directed by Eglė Razumaitė) competed for the 2024 Palme d’Or.
Rūta Kiaupaitė is a documentary film producer and filmmaker. Coming from the field of visual anthropology, Rūta is also active in film education and teaches at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Film screening is organized by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association together with cultural center SODAS 2123. LIAA activities are supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius city municipality.
Film screening with the presentation by the producer Rūta Kiaupaitė and cinematographer Nojus Drąsutis:
2024/10/31 7pm
‘Swanback’, 2024, duration – 15 min., film language – english.
Address: cultural center SODAS 2123 (project space), Vitebsko st. 23, Vilnius.
Free entry, no registration required. This event is part of the ‘OPEN SODAS: Movement’ programme. More information – www.sodas2123.lt.
Photo – still from ‘Swanback’. Marija Nemčenko.