Zangezi

The last play written by Velimir Khlebnikov before his death in 1922, Zangezi was an ecstatic drama written partly in the invented languages of the gods and birds. Vladimir Tatlin was the director, designer and performer of the main role in a production of the play performed at the Museum of Artistic Culture in Petrograd on 11, 13 and 30 May 1923. Tatlin transformed Khlebnikov’s “super-tale” into a “performance + lecture + exhibition of material constructions,” drawing a parallel between the material forms and “architecture from words” of his late friend.