Snowblink’s new virtual reality video for “Feel Like A Man” debuts, today in Marfa, TX. Snowblink will be performing along with Perfume Genius, Roky Erickson, Weyes Blood and more, at Marfa Myths Festival. The video, directed by Sam Fleischner, was made during the US election week in Brooklyn with a crew of around 30 people – 90% of whom were women. When the video was made “It was a week of hate crimes and fear, where women had to stomach a misogynist taking his seat as the president elect,” says Snowblink’s Daniela Gesundheit. “Many of the women on the set were heartbroken, afraid, angry. We came together with a common purpose and created a ritual – a surrealist futuristic virtual reality seance wherein twelve dancers undergo a deep transformation over the course of a dinner banquet. With the camera positioned at the center of the banquet table, the viewer stands surrounded by these women, often encountering intense or compassionate eye contact. The piece is intimate and gives the viewer a sense of being a part of something private and transformative.”

Gesundheit described the impetus for her song “Feel Like A Man” to Kurt Anderson on WNYC’s Studio 360 when the band visited last year: “It was a response to a sense of masculinity burnout – an exhaustion from years of being a woman ‘in drag’ energetically, putting on an armor of masculine energy in order to succeed.” It brings to mind Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent actions on the Senate floor, or the current zeitgeist of women and men confronting and dismantling patriarchal systems. Many people feel poised to construct and embrace new models, but it takes an otherworldly resilience to get through this current state of the old systems crumbling, often violently. “Feel Like A Man” is an anthem for this moment – a moment of staring down violence without blinking, while maintaining the pliability, empathy, and dignity necessary to move in an uncharted direction.

The duo of Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Goldman were joined in studio for the creation of Returning Current was co-producer Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas), and a cast of acclaimed musicians including Leslie Feist, Owen Pallett, Barbara Gruska (Fiona Apple, Jenny Lewis, Ray LaMontagne), Johnny Spence (Tegan and Sara), Thom Gill, Ariel Engle (AroarA), Steven Foster (Doldrums), Felicity Williams (Bahamas), Philipe Melanson (Rufus Wainwright), Mika Posen (Timber Timbre), and many others.