how to watch

deadbird will be streaming on october 14, 2022 at 5pm EST, followed by a panel conversation during an upcoming tour (october 12-15, 2022) to syracuse and hamilton, new york. see below for free tickets [in-person and remote].

it is also available for pay-per-view self-stream on this website. learn more about the film and the opening night conversation between devynn emory and Okwui Okpokwasili.

 

learn more about the film and the opening night conversation between devynn emory and Okwui Okpokwasili. you are invited to rent the film for your personal viewing, or to purchase the film for institutional screenings and large gatherings. thank you in advance for your honest offering.

accompanying the film is can anybody help me hold this body, a public grief altar in several u.s. cities (or create one of your own) after screening the film.

deadbird centers a cyclical duet between devynn and manny the mannequin in an object/abject relations reflection. devynn is an Indigenous and transgender person who has a long spiritual practice in bridging planes to the spirit world, finding a wild commonality and kinship with the medical mannequins used as the main

teaching tool in nursing school. finding these mannequins as familiar in-between space, deadbird follows three characters who share their stories of near-death experiences and the afterlife, seeded in an amalgamation of patients passed, friends lost in queer community, and family taken by COVID-19.

part-critical commentary of the medical industrial complex in friction with devynn’s ceremonial end-of-life care, deadbird invites an audience to move with these three

characters through three cycles: we begin in an absurdist talk show bleeding truths of medical exploitation; we move to a ritual bathing sequence finding the balm of stretched time while creating space for deteriorating bodies; and we use portals of transformation where the characters transition identity and cross over thresholds and planes. deadbird concludes with an invitation to be unalone.

visiting dates

select a location below for more information on the project's trajectory. select “at home” for a private screening and altar practice.

  • NYC
    Lenapehoking+
    New York
    3/31/21 - 4/3/21
  • PHI
    Lenni-Lenape+
    Philadelphia
    4/16 /21- 4/18/21
  • PDX
    Portland*

    5/28/21 - 5/30/21
  • SYR+HAM
    Onondaga+ Oneida+
    Syracuse, Hamilton 
    10/13/22 - 10/15/22
  • at home
    your house
    --
    --

add to the archive

after visiting an altar you are invited to document your altar offerings and upload them to the collective archive of can anybody help me hold this body.

land acknowledgement

as deadbird and its traveling altar can anybody help me hold this body travels across Turtle Island (Northern America), we recognize all of the Indigenous peoples of these lands, past, present, and here now. only a few of these peoples are named here. we encourage you to learn more about where you are as you are asking the land to hold and compost your grief and offering. we acknowledge these traditional, ancestral, unceded territories by grieving our loved ones with the land as an actionable exchange and reciprocity. in doing so we engage in our responsibility to the history of these sacred lands, rooted in our respect and continued accountability.