ZANGEZI 2025
Velimir Khlebnikov’s 1922 Futurist performance Zangezi is restaged as a radical, multimedia experimental poem. The piece probes the urgent themes of humanity’s relationship with nature, the power of language, and war as a driver of history.
In its 2025 version directed by Chris Salter, a monumental LED wall functions as a central visual and lighting device, with intense, physical acting and spectacular live media combining spatialized sound, light, music, graphics, and game engine generated scenography, in what Khlebnikov called a “supersaga.”
Zangezi is a total work of art integrating visual art, music, and performance and which celebrates the dissolution of epic narrative form into new radical linguistic experiments. The text, which represents the pinnacle of Khlebnikov’s literary work, was written in Baku between 1920 and 1922 (the year of Khlebnikov’s death). A key player in Russian Futurism, Khlebnikov dreamed of a radical poetic renewal of language. Zangezi was written after World War I and the October Revolution. Its theme is language as sound: songs, noises, onomatopoeic sounds (such as birdsong), poetic monologues and dialogues between Zangezi, human and prophet, and the natural and divine world. Zangezi is legendary for its experimental and exuberantly playful use of language and its complete departure from traditional dramatic form.
At its center is Zangezi, a prophet who communes with birds, gods, and the cosmos. In mountain forests, crowds gather to hear his sermons in rhythmic verses, lyrical monologues, and “star language”—a system of consonants and invented words linked to geometry and cosmic meaning. This radical experiment in Zaum (“beyondsense”) sought a utopian universal language to transcend national borders.
Khlebnikov also pursued mathematical formulas to predict history, exploring the tension between meaning and nonsense, order and chaos. Zangezi’s ecstatic sounds recall both primal human speech and children’s invented languages, blurring reason and play.
The role of M-A-D was to conceive a graphical language and its collateral and stage elements, including videos, titles and animated sequences being played out between the 15 “planes” on the LED screen. A separate aspect is a research on the visual vernacular of ZAUM.
ZANGEZI 2025 was produced by Muffatwerk, Munich to be premiered at Weimar’s Redoute and Munich’s Muffathalle In this innovative new performance, Zangezi is transported into the current technological state of the planet. In the current context of a world in which machines create language, hallucinate and make mistakes about a world in climatological and political disarray, Zangezi powerfully resonates between the futurist moment 104 years ago and our unstable present and future.
TEAM Directed by Chris Salter, with performers Audrey Chen and Judith Rosmair, and Erik Adigard (FR/US), Audry Chen (US/DE), Stefanie Egedy (BR), The Future of Dance Company (NG), Immersive Arts Space/ZHdK (CH), Pascal Lund-Jensen (CH), kyoka (JP), Raqs Media Collective (IN), Team Rolfes (US), Judith Rosmair (DE), Chris Salter (US/CH), Sebastien Schiesser (CH), Remco Schuurbiers (NL/DE), Pierre-Luc Senecal/Growlers Choir (QC/CA), Sacha Schwarz (CH), Rully Shabara (ID), Stella Speziali (CH), Timothy Thomasson (CA), Fernando Velasquez (BR)