Eszter Salamon (DE/FR/HU)
Reappearance & Sommerspiele

Film

© Marie Zahir

Valeska Gert was a fierce star of German dance modernism. She wasn’t interested in sylphs and swans but in motifs such as “the procurer” (Kupplerin), “nervousness” (Nervosität), “newsreel” (Wochenschau) or “riff-raff” (Canaille). Her genre, which includes mime, is called grotesque dance. Berlin-based Hungarian choreographer Eszter Salamon is so fascinated by this artist that she has dedicated a performance series to her: The Valeska Gert Monuments. ImPulsTanz presents Salamon in her first film, Reappearance, as a figure closely associated with Valeska Gert in a manifesto against forgetting. The follow-up work, Sommerspiele, is about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where the opening ceremony was devised by choreographers loyal to the regime, while others – like Gert – were ostracised by the Nazis. Both films are efforts by Eszter Salamon to trigger a change in the historical canon.