‘Constantinopoliad, The Concert’ is a live narrative and sound event by sister sylvester and Nadah El Shazly. A response to the archive of the poet Constantine Cavafy, the story is inspired by the blank and torn out pages in a journal that the teenage Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria; by lost and missing queer archives through time; and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems.
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Credits:
Conceived, directed and written by sister sylvester
Score by Nadah El Shazly
Constantinopoliad, The Concert was co-produced by Onassis ONX.
This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.
Sister Sylvester is a multimedia artist based in New York and Istanbul. Her work has been called ‘genuinely subversive’ by Time Out NY; ‘original’ by New York Times; ‘perplexing’ by Theaterscene, ‘apocalyptic’ by artforum, and an ‘intimate, off-kilter, queer artistic orgasm’ by Life Magazine, Greece.
Her installation and film work include ‘Constantinopoliad’ which won the Interactive award at CPH:DOX 2025; ‘Drinking Brecht’ which premiered at IDFA ’24, the VR documentary‘Shadowtime’, (’23, co-dir Deniz Tortum) which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival; and the film ‘Our Ark’ (2021, co-dir Deniz Tortum) which premiered at IDFA. In her live work she creates visual essays and books that become performances, spatial narratives that play with spoken and written text to create communal reading experiences. Constantinopoliad, with a live-score by Nadah El Shazly, is an exploration of queer archives inspired by the blank pages in the teenage journal of the Alexandrian poet Cavafy. The Eagle and The Tortoise is a visual essay and communal ready that explores the history of the aerial view in colonial thought and North American wars. She is a 2025 Creative Capital fellow, a current resident at ONX Studio; a 2019 MacDowell Fellow. She teaches a bio-art class, “The School of Genetically Modified Theater,” at Colorado College, and has also taught and lectured at MIT, Princeton, UCCS, Columbia University, and Boğaziçi, Istanbul.
Born and raised in Cairo, Nadah El Shazly began her musical journey as a member of Sick Gdrch, a Misfits cover band, before venturing into electronic production and composition. Her debut album, 2017’s ‘Ahwar’, earned global praise, and established Nadah as a leading figure in the contemporary music landscape. She appeared on the cover of The Wire in 2018 in an issue announcing “Cairo’s New Wave.” El Shazly’s live performances are equally immersive, combining her enthralling voice with intricate sound manipulation and dynamic collaborations with other musicians. She has worked with a host of innovators including Sam Shalabi, Elvin Brandhi, Maurice Louca, and many more. She’s graced stages at prestigious venues and festivals worldwide, including Irtijal, Le Guess Who?, Rewire, Best Kept Secret, FIMAV, Roskilde, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Nusasonic, and Marfa Myths. Nadah is also known for her soundtrack work. In 2022 she scored the film Les Damnés ne pleurent pas (The Damned Don’t Cry), that follows Fatima-Zahra and her teenage son Selim who move from place to place, forever trying to outrun the latest scandal she’s caught up in. El Shazly won the Best Original Music award at the Bordeaux International Independent Film Festival and at the Dublin International Film Festival. In the last year she’s also scored Last Party in R. Desert! by Mahmoud Sabbagh, and To a Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel, which premiered at Cannes.