director’s notes
Ty Burdenski:
“I was raised amidst the Adventist community and even briefly attended a Seventh Day Adventist school where I first learned the story of the Millerites and the procession of prophets that we built the film around. It was taught to me as the origin story of the SDA Church. After years of thinking about the spiritual aspects of “abolitionist politics,” I had the idea to return to this mythology to learn more about the sincere and absurd attempts to ‘break the world’ from those who came before us.”
Chani Bockwinkel:
“When Ty approached me about the project I was reading Donna Haraway and thinking about “staying with the trouble” inside of and alongside apocalyptic narratives. So I was immediately interested in this doomsday story as an allegory. In particular, I wanted to bring my dance and performance lens to explore this period of spiritual awakening. I was drawn to the physicality of prophetic style that marked this moment of religious revival. We sought to bring a queer sensibility to all aspects of this (unlikely)production. With many parts of the historical record missing, we attempt to be in conversation with history while allowing queer imagination to ‘fill in the cracks.’...”