From: Zhanna R <zr28@cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 1:52 PM
Subject: You’re invited — Rites of Passage: Installation/Performance, Monday June 22, 6–10 PM
—————————
Hi everyone,
I’m writing to invite you to the culminating presentation of my year-long project, Overgangsrite aan Zee. Below is an overview of the event, with further background on the work beneath the line.
What to Expect: This is an immersive, drop-in experience featuring a ~30-minute film on loop, multichannel spatialized audio, and sculptural elements. There is also an optional, 20-minute timed entry into “The Sand Room” for a more intimate, solitary experience.
Essential Logistics:
- When: Monday, June 22nd | 6:00–10:00 PM
- Where: Black Box Theater, HN 543 (5th Floor, Hunter North)
- What to bring: Your smartphone and a pair of headphones.
- Access: If you are not a Hunter student/faculty, you must register in advance for security.
Volunteers: If you are interested in volunteering an hour to help run the space, please respond to this email.Links:
Please see the detailed description of the project and further logistics below:
Sincerely,
Zhanna Rozenberg
Hi All,
I’m writing to invite you to the culminating presentation of a project I’ve been living with for the past year: Overgangsrite aan Zee (Rites of Passage).
WHEN: Monday, June 22nd, 6:00–10:00 PM
WHERE: Black Box Theater, HN 543, 5th Floor, Hunter North Building 695 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065 (enter on East 69th St, between Lexington and Park) No cost of admission. Someone will be there to guide you from the elevator on the 5th floor.
There are two things to experience:
- (a) Video & Installation — a ~30-minute film and installation running on a continuous loop in the main space. This is a group-level, drop-in experience — come and go as you please, stay for as much or as little as you’d like. No need to focus on explicit beginning or endings; think of it as a loop you’re stepping into and out of.
- (b) The Sand Room — a separate, optional 20-minute timed entry into a room to yourself. More details below.
WHAT TO BRING: Your phone and a pair of headphones that connect to it. A limited number will be available on site, but you’ll likely prefer your own.
NON-HUNTER FOLKS: You’ll need a photo ID. Please go to Hunter West first to pick up a visitor badge before heading to Hunter North — give yourself a few extra minutes for this. You’ll also need to register in advance — if I don’t have your name ahead of the day of the event, I can’t guarantee I’ll get it to campus security in time, and you won’t be let in. Please register as soon as you can.
A note on timing: given the projection and lighting involved, and the fact that the room isn’t fully light-isolated, coming closer to sundown will likely give you a slightly richer experience.
—
About the work:
Over the past year I’ve been working on a piece about mourning. It has lived across three forms:
V1 was a live solo performance (November 2025), originally developed in Lynne Sachs’ “The Accident That Pricks” class — set, costuming, a sound score derived from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, performed live. Of the three, it’s the most about childhood and play. It happened once and, for now, lies in the past.
V2 was an experimental film (screened May 2026), supported by a Hunter SAF Performance Grant. It draws on a lineage closer to Maya Deren, Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson, and Chantal Akerman — an experience of embodied mourning, fairly metaphysical, and the most intimate of the three.
V3 is this installation/performance — the most accessible of the three, and the least time-based. Where the film holds you in a feeling state, sitting in intimacy, this version is about being contained by something broader — the room itself, the space you’re in. It leans further into the conceptual: questions of presence and absence, and the simultaneity of memory, experience, and imagined futures. It includes multichannel and spatialized audio streamed to your headphones, alongside sculptural elements and the space itself.
(If Marina Abramović asserts: “The Artist Is Present” — this piece tries to navigate something more quietly: Is the artist present? Who is absent? What’s unknown and what’s unseen?)
The Sand Room: In addition to the main installation, there’s a separate, optional 20-minute timed session in The Sand Room. Remember someone you’ve lost. Remember anything else. Imagine the future. Or just sit in silence. You do what you want. Feel free to touch or move anything.
—
Logistics:
- Registration for the installation (6–10 PM): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/overgangsrite-aan-zee-rites-of-passage-installationperformance-tickets-1992072299874
- Limited spots for the Sand Room — book a session here: https://calendly.com/zr28cornell/thesandroom
- This is a drop-in exhibition space, not a seated screening — come and go as you like within the 6–10 PM window.
- A full loop of the film runs about 32 minutes; budget a few extra minutes to connect your headphones to the audio system. I
- Once you’re up on the 5th floor, you may be let into the room in small timed groups depending on the crowd — if so, there may be a short wait in the hallway.
- As you’ll see, I’ll be fully occupied with the installation throughout the evening and won’t be able to step away to chat.
- If your preferred room time is taken, none of the slots work, you can’t make it Monday, or you’re interested in volunteering an hour to help run the space — just email me: zr28@cornell.edu.
- Pictures and video are welcome, but please be respectful of others in the space, and if you’d like to share the work with people who couldn’t be there, please do so directly — in person, by text, or by email — rather than on social media. I’d also love a copy of anything you capture and if you could upload it here, that would be appreciated: https://photos.app.goo.gl/rak5iB9V1auZ9iMo9
Thank you for following this piece across its many lives this year. I hope you’ll come sit with it.
Sincerely,
Zhanna