Žilvinė is a screen-dance film investigating the connection between ancestors, nature, and descendants through the reimagination of the Lithuanian folktale, “Eglė Žalčiū Karalienė”. Drawing on pagan Lithuanian relationships with land and nature, the dancer takes on the persona of the “King of Serpents” (a character in the folktale) becoming all at once human, natural, and mythic. Combined with natural and drawn elements, Žilvinė creates a space where the past, present, and natural live with and around each other, reconfiguring relationships between ancestral and contemporary knowledge.
Brigita Gedgaudas is an emerging, interdisciplinary, trans*, and diasporic-Lithuanian artist. Eir practice draws on his engagement in W*acking (queer street dance) and Lithuanian folk dance. Embracing indeterminacy, Brigita engages with in-betweenness as they explore contradictory experiences of gender and cultural identity through experimental realms of dance and digital worldbuilding.