DAMSELFLY

In Damselfly, New York artist duo Alaïa and Demetris Charalambous lead us into a surreal underworld of unrealized performers, fractured glamour, and exposed transformation. Captured on Super 8 and set to an original score by Quique Rios-Ellis, the film unfolds inside a dimly decaying bar suspended somewhere between cabaret, downtown theater, and dream logic.

Together, the artists explore metamorphosis not as concealment, but as public revelation. Like the damselfly emerging from its split skin, their bodies crack, glitter, and unravel beneath the gaze of the stage lights. Through choreography, mime, and theatrical confrontation, Damselfly traces the fragile space between devotion and spectacle, asking what remains when performance consumes the self, and what kinds of intimacy can still survive inside the ruin.

CONCEIVED, DIRECTED AND PERFORMED DEMETRIS CHARALAMBOUS @detherealc & ALAÏA @ya_alaia
SOUND DESIGN & CINEMATOGRAPHY QUIQUE RIOS-ELLIS @le_quique
TEXT MAYA BIGIRIMANA @mayasarahhh
SET & LIGHTING DESIGN HUDSON BOHR @hud.mona
VIDEO EDIT ALAÏA @ya_alaia , DEMETRIS CHARALAMBOUS @detherealc
STYLING & GLAM ALAÏA  @ya_alaia
STILLS & EDITING HUDSON BOHR  @hud.mona
COLORING QUIQUE RIOS ELLIS @le_quique
THANK YOU  BREE, VANESSA & THE TEAM AT TELEPHONE @telephoneroom

“Behold! A peep show for the insatiable eyes”

The film lingers in the tension between spectacle and intimacy, while still truly seeing one another through performance as both exposure and protection. Gestures shift between confrontation and care as the two artists morph around one another in a fragile negotiation of power, intimacy, and observation. As a continuation of their earlier project Chrysalis — rooted in the safety of the cocoon — Damselfly moves toward something more vulnerable: an incomplete, public becoming. Beneath the spotlight, the film asks what it means to create alongside someone who is simultaneously your collaborator, your witness, and your armor.

MAYA: What was the first image or feeling that led to Damselfly?

DEMETRIS: We initially conceived this film in June 2025, almost a year ago. At the time, we had a sense of the world we wanted to create, but we didn’t yet know exactly where the piece was heading. Much of our inspiration came from an exercise we developed during our early explorations together. The exercise consisted of maintaining eye contact through a mirror for over an hour while describing one another in as much detail as possible. There was something transformative about that experience; witnessing each other so intensely led us to want to create a work centered on spectatorship and our respective journeys as performers.

One day in January, Alaïa calls me all the way from Japan and says, “I know what we’re going to call the piece: Damselfly.”

It made perfect sense in the most absurd way. We realized it was an instinctive response to an earlier body of our work titled Chrysalis, a durational performance where we explored the process of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. In Damselfly, we descend further into an absurd vaudeville of glamour. Unlike butterflies, which transform entirely within the protection of a chrysalis, a damselfly’s metamorphosis unfolds publicly as a kind of brutal revealing. We thought this spoke directly to what we were exploring, our departure from the safety of a shared Chrysalis we had built for ourselves back in the day, and the growing pains and discomfort of being transformed under a harsh spotlight individually.

ALAÏA: It wasn’t intimidating to us, to have to conjure something in a mere few days, amidst a loaded tour and performance schedule. Our work often combusts from a singular spark - a shake and go Liza wig from the sex shop (laughs), a pair of matching Gaultier bras, a 60s swim cap. We cut and paste the accessories, fiddle with the face paint right up until the cameras are rolling or the curtain is up- until we feel that every theme has a motive. The smallest details intrigue me- how far will my eyebrow arch? What shade of red are we using on the lip? For this piece, I wanted the glam to be done strictly by ourselves, in the dark, dusty mirror backstage at the bar- the edges left rough and unfinished. By the final few scenes, we wanted the looks to feel as though we’ve covered ourselves in some glue and rolled around on the floor of The Rosemont at closing hour. Whatever stuck, made the cut. In this way, the glamor too has its own character arc.

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What inspired the emotional and creative world of Damselfly, and what did making the film allow you to reconnect with as a duo?

A: As artists I think we exist in a perpetual state of disbalance that we strive to resolve through our practice. Navigating societal pressures and conditions - money hungry machines, production companies, employers that demand our work be created within their archetypical forms. After a certain point, I found myself with an internal numbness, bound by papers that rendered my art powerless and uninspired. They promised to serve the tangible purposes of maintaining financial stability and my ever elusive immigration status, but did little to nourish my hunger for a kind of primal connection that I remembered from the early days of working with Deme. So with Damselfly, the ability to dip my toes back into creative mode and run around town in hopes of stumbling upon a perfect visual feast felt exhilarating. 

D: Life was so different back when we first met. We both bonded as young gay immigrants with a vital necessity to create disruptive art. I always like to joke about how back then, we felt like we were immortal. The sheer audacity and boldness with which we carried ourselves around the East Village was really born from the safety we had created for one another. Then, life happened, as it does, and our paths splitting felt like a violent uprooting. It forced us to transform individually and uncomfortably under the unyielding light of our own spotlights. In many ways this project is a return to that earlier feeling of immortality: A way of rediscovering the intimacy, risk, and creative freedom that first brought us together. Set in a Sartrean room with no exit, draped in Lynchian curtains and charged with a Leigh Bowery-esque glamour, Damselfly is a homecoming and resolve for our cynical performance personas — A glittering portal back to our younger and fearless selves.

Can you speak about your experience with the violence of spectatorship as performers? 

D: It was during Chrysalis that we initially both first experienced the violent side of spectacle. A couple of hours into the four hour durational piece, a small crowd began to assemble at Cooper Triangle downtown and observed as I duct taped Alaïa to a lamp post. At some point a man's voice pierced the air, threatening to pull a gun. We continued performing in the safety of our cocoon as friends in the audience stepped in, calling attention to him and shielding us from the escalating tension. That was a moment where performance and reality blurred their boundaries and violence became a real risk of the work.  

A: Although shot in the safety of an empty bar with our partners Quique and Hudson, our experience with spectatorship and how it influenced us is palpable throughout the film. In the beginning, Deme and I alternate from a state of control, to a state of surrender. As I struggle through a loop of impossible choreography in a scorching spotlight, he takes a comically long drag of a cigarette. Or as he crashes out over an empty liquor bottle, I cover his eyes, inviting him to partake blindly in the intoxicating promise of success. Eventually, he infects me with a nihilism - forcing crystals down my throat, and the lights cut out. As if rejected, pieces of our armor collapse, the coins ricochet off the floor and the illusion of opulence is shattered at once. Yet even in total defeat, my eyes find the camera lens, aware of the spectacle of it all. 

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A: The finale of Damselfly reveals what is left behind. It invites the viewer to experience the artist’s private space, after the curtains draw and the venue empties out. Entwined in an embrace, Deme and I trace each other’s contours delicately. I strip his headpiece and my fingers graze his scalp. He plucks an eyelash, I laugh, because I know I am safe, even if momentarily. In our minds, we are back at the mirror, back in our cocoon, witnessing the parts of ourselves that are familiar only to us, seeing them in a way that only we can. And perhaps, in this momentary relief, lies our ultimate artistic resolve.

There is such a physical relationship between sound, movement, and color throughout Damselfly. As someone deeply connected to both the artists and the world they created, how did you approach building a score that could hold all of that tension, intimacy, and spectacle? 

QuiQue: Damselfly feels like it's always sparking and spilling out of itself. The edit of the film was already finalized when I was given the challenge to score it. I knew that the sound had to be very specific because the film already feels audible even when watched in silence. All the visual elements that appear in the film are highly specific; the red curtain, the choreography, the costumes, the bar stools, even their lashes feel like real inhabitants of that world, all making their own sounds and contributing to its sonic landscape. I wanted to draw from that landscape and place/collage sound in a way that matched the pace set by Deme and Alaïa’s cut. 

The first place I went to directly was my dad and collaborator, Dr. Enrique Rios-Ellis; He plays the saxophone you hear throughout the score. His improvisations are a treasure chest of infinite possibility. It feels like such a gift when the sources available to make something feel so integral and necessary to the thing being made. I felt the same about our collaboration with Deme and Alaïa. We only had six hours in a hidden speakeasy of a bar we hadn't visited before, yet every take felt like it was exactly what it was supposed to be. I would catch glimpses of their expressions through the viewfinder and think about how wonderful and raw was what I was seeing. 

One of the samples I used is the beginning of Cerrones “Love in C minor” where there's this beautiful and comforting, kind of raunchy, banter between friends that erupts into laughter. I’ve always imagined them smoking cigarettes and drinking champagne and in between shots during Damselfly I was reminded of it; Deme and Alaïa are playing characters in the film but simultaneously their most authentic selves. If there wasn’t a wig or outfit needing adjustment when the camera would stop rolling, you almost couldn't tell if they were still in character or not. Their banter and chemistry is a constant core of this world. I think that's why the film feels so whole to me — there were no uninvolved materials that contributed to its making. Every emotional and physical component of it came from the same intimate saturated source. Like a house built by house or a sound that's laughter.

“You’ve become a double edged sword my love”

@DETHEREALC @YA_ALAIA @LE_QUIQUE