Surmatants – Mars Rising 2021
An elegiacally visceral response to the COVID-19 pandemic in three acts.
Description
An elegiacally visceral response to the COVID-19 pandemic in three acts — converging Pittsburgh’s Slavic immigrant labor history and 13th century plague informants. Tenants of Russian Cosmism and transcendence are evoked through Jesse Gelaznik’s musical compositions, paired with dances by John Harbist and renowned choreographer Željko Jergan and performed by the Tamburitzans.
Artist Statement
Surmatants – Mars Rising is an elegiacally visceral response to the CV19 pandemic in three acts — informed by Pittsburgh’s Slavic immigrant labour history, and 13th century bubonic plague imagery — through a release of dance. Tenants of Russian Cosmisim and transcendence are evoked through Jesse Gelaznik’s musical compositions, paired with renowned choreographer – Željko Jergan and John Harbist’s dances performed by the Tamburitzans. The installation is structured through a physical ascent, connecting three spaces (the white room, red room, and black room) — crescendoing to three channel circular video projection transmitting a human resurrection on Mars from the future.
I would like to thank and acknowledge with the greatest admiration everyone involved in the realization of the SMR installation, while navigating the CV19 pandemic. Thank you all.
Surmatants – Mars Rising (Three Channel HD Video)
Director
Andréa Stanislav
Co-Director
Denise Mustafa
Music Composer
Jesse Gelaznik
Producers
Danny Bracken — for the Mattress Factory
Andréa Stanislav
Denise Mustafa
Choreography
Željko Jergan
John Harbist
Production Designer
Andréa Stanislav
Cinematographer
Rafael Abreu-Canedo
Tamburtizans Dance Performers
Milan Bajich
Stevan Bajich
Arianna Burns
Sam Caloiero
Sofia Caloiero
Charles Cubelic
Libby Cubelic
Victoria Cubelic
Anka Gataric
Alex Hersh
Alex Hrishenko
Isabella Husnick
Dusan Karas
Nick Keleschenyi
Alena Kucan
Karsyn Kuhn
Iryna Luchynyn
Sarah Melio
Austin Miller
Courtney Mireles
Madison Mustach
Anna Steen
Mira Steen
Natalia Stee
Emma Tome
Carmen Wilson
4th Horseman
Victoria Cubelic
Animal Trainer
Danielle Ashley
White Horse
Hank
Second Camera
Andréa Stanislav
Drone Camera
Ryan McIntyre — Perspectrum LCC
Still Photography
Josh Ice
Production Supervisor
Alyssa Bushunow
Costume Design and Wardrobe
Merle Pastrick Linn
Hair/Makeup
Victoria Cubelic
Set Operations
Josh Ice
Video Editor
Denise Mustafa
Andréa Stanislav
CGI Animation
Jacopo Mazzoni
Musicians
Benjamin Louis Brody – French Horn
Mark Broschinsky – Trombone
Jesse Gelaznik – Guitar, Piano, Synthesizer
Heather Green – Soprano Vocals
Herb Harris – Autoharp
Christopher Johnson – Bass
Sound Engineer
Jesse Gelaznik
Sound Editing and Design
Jesse Gelaznik and Denise Mustafa
Slavic Culture Consultant
Joe Bielecki
Location
Carrie Furnaces – Rivers of Steel, Pittsburgh, PA
Final Sound Mastering
Eric Elterman – Boomtown Studio, Brooklyn, NY
Andréa Stanislav is an American artist based in New York City and works in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Bloomington, Indiana. Her hybrid practice spans sculpture, video, immersive multimedia installation, and public art. Stanislav’s work is anchored in a collision of beauty and horror — dualities that intimate sublimity, through equations of site + scale. Andréa’s work often excavates constructs and devolution of civilizations and empires —merging the past and present, while proposing questions of the future. In the Duchampian sense, the viewer becomes a participant who completes the work. Stanislav’s installations erode the boundary between subject and object in a literal “physicality of ideas” — manifested experientially through an immersive experience. Stanislav’s work has been exhibited internationally at museums, contemporary art centers, galleries, biennials, site-specific public locations and art fairs.