Eszter Salamon’s works are explorations of systems of power and how bodies act as their extensions and historical carriers. At the same time, she recognises the potential and capacity of dance to renegotiate supposed inescapabilities and continuities. In this intimate duet, Salamon and her mother, Budapest dance educator Erzsébet Gyarmati, question the myth of a linear transfer of legacy from the older to the next generation. Instead, the two performers take the stage in an almost twin-like manner: the audience is invited to attend a touching, unstable overlap and conjoining of bodies, highlighting not only their similarities and differences but perhaps paving the way for what Salamon calls “a third thing” – an ingenuous and fully “current” co-presence.
Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK Guest Performance Fund for Dance International, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Concept and artistic direction: Eszter Salamon
Choreography and performance: Eszter Salamon and Erzsébet Gyarmati
Text: Composition As Explanation by Gertrude Stein
Set design: Eszter Salamon and Sylvie Garot
Lighting design: Sylvie Garot
Costume design: Sabin Gröflin
Technical direction: Matteo Bambi
Outside eye: Liza Baliasnaja and Boglàrka Börcsök
Production: Alexandra Wellensiek / Botschaft GbR and Studio ES/ Elodie Perrin
Co-production: If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam (NL), Project Arts Centre, Dublin (IE), and Ménagerie de Verre, Paris (FR)
Commissioned by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam (NL)
Funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt (DE), the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (DE) and DRAC Île-de-France – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (FR)
Supported by NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ – Koproduktionsförderung Tanz (DE)
In cooperation with Kultur Büro Elisabeth, Berlin (DE)
Special thanks to Susan Gibb and Ferenc Salamon, Lili Kárpáti and Uferstudios (DE), as well as Christine De Smedt for the collective choreographic research made in Dance #2 (2011) that partly resonates in this work.
