Part of ProtoZone18: Unfamiliar Evermore, 14.03.2025-11.05.2025

Songs from the compost: mutating bodies, imploding stars

film, 28min

Collaboration with Marija Olšauskaitė and Julija Steponaitytė.

The film, shot in the pine forests and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, is a hypnotic exploration of nonhuman forms of consciousness and different dimensions of symbiotic life: interdependence, surrender, death, and decay.

The images gradually layer, alongside intimate lyrics of a song that channels the desires of an entity shapeshifting across different genders, voices, and beyond-human embodiments. Featuring a cast comprised of local youth, alongside performer and choreographer Mami Kang, the film unfolds through a specially conceived song, choreography and costumes.

Horizontality in the choreography undoes the usual verticality of human figure, unfurling her into the landscape.The performers’ bodies are sites of activity, though they’re often horizontal, pulled toward the earth and one another, moving through the forest, along the sand dunes and water.

The song lyrics draw on the work and words of biologist Lynn Margulis, celebrating the role of bacteria in making life and the collaboration between the single-cell organisms possible, as well as concepts by the science-fiction author Octavia Butler, who employed tropes of symbiosis, mutation, and hybridity to challenge hierarchies and categorisation.

Directing: Eglė Budvytytė

Song lyrics and voices: Eglė Budvytytė

Sound design: Steve Martin Snider

Art directing: Marija Olšauskaitė, Julija Steponaitytė

Solo dance performed and choreographed by Mami Kang

Camera: Vytautas Plukas

Camera assistant: Martynas Norvaišas

Editing: Bart Groenendaal and Eglė Budvytytė

Special effects: Elena Permogorskaya and Viktorija Obor

Performers:

Viktorija Zobielaitė

Evegeniy Kalachov

Goda Motiejaitytė

Silvija Lileikytė

Kipras Chlebinskas

Julija Steponaitytė

Special thanks to:

Coda dance school

Inga Briazkalovaite

Egija Inzule

Maria Tsoy

Antanas Lučiūnas

Martynas Kazimierienas

Kestutis Minderis

Indrė Dikavičiūtė

Klaipėdos Lėlių teatras

Kuršių Nerijos Nacionalinio parko direkcija

Supported by:

Nida Art Colony

4Cs -From conflict to conviviality through culture

RIBOCA2

Mondriaan Funds

Lithuanian Culture Council

BIO
Eglė Budvytytė is an artist based in Vilnius and Amsterdam working at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for a possible subversion of normativity, gender and social roles and for dominant narratives governing public spaces.

Her practice, spanning across songs, poetry, videos and performances, explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability and permeable relationships between bodies, audiences and the environments.

Her work was shown amongst others at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL, Riga International Biennial of Contemporary art (RIBOCA); Renaissance Society, Chicago, Lofoten International Art festival; Block Universe festival, London; Art Dubai commissions; Liste, Art Basel; 19th Biennale of Sydney; De Appel Arts Centre; CAC in Vilnius, and Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam. Egle was resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, FR, 2012) and at Wiels, Contemporary art centre, (Brussels, BE, 2013).