The Fall (2018)

previous version (2015) titled: They Are Gone But Here Must I Remain

Performance; Power-point projection, screen constructed from paper and plywood, marker pens, live chicken, nunchuks, 35mm film, excerpts from Peter Whitehead's film The Fall, interviews with Peter Whitehead and others, skype call, feathers.
Duration 1.10hr mins.
Performed at Park Avenue Armory 2014; JACK, Brooklyn, 2015; The Public Theater, Manhattan, as part of Under The Radar Festival 2016; ATHE, Boston, 2018.
Written and Directed by : sister sylvester, in collaboration with Cyrus Moshrefi and Kelsea Martin.
Dramaturgy: Jeremy M. Barker,
Lighting Design: Bruce Steinberg,
Sound design: Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste,
Assistant Directors: Jacqueline Blaska and Ry Szelong

The Fall at ATHE conference in Boston,  3rd August 2018

A deconstructed film-screening based on Peter Whitehead's cult 1969 film, The Fall. Shot in New York during the collapse of the protest movement, The Fall began as a fiction film, but quickly changed course as Whitehead found himself inside Columbia University during the student occupation and subsequent police attacks. Denied release because potential backers found the film too violent, Whitehead's experiences making the film caused him to reject the social efficacy of art, quit film-making, and move to the highest mountain in Saudi Arabia to breed falcons. The film, however, followed its own path, finding its way to Greece during the student movement which led to the overthrow of the Junta, and to Iran during the university led movement which became the revolution. They Are Gone... stages a film-lecture/screening that presents their original research into this story, and questions the relationship between art and social action. 

Photos, ATHE 2018

Video Sketches