First as Pilgrims, Then as Pilots

First as Pilgrims, Then as Pilots, the newly commissioned performance by Ross Cisneros, combines music, video projection and drawing. Set to a live score created by Cisneros and composer Stan Harrison, Cisneros’ sculptural, video and performance art work explores cultural ideologies and evocative associations relating to issues of technology, science, mythology, liturgical practice and sacred ritual.

The project centers around a traveler who, after emerging from a plane crash onto a snowy mountain range, produces a series of drawings based on the archetypes referenced in the video projection. The projection relates the story of the exile of the Crimean Tartar people, who, at the end of WWII, were forced by Lenin to leave Crimea and emigrate to central Asia due to the oppressive conditions in their homeland.