MONUMENT 0: Haunted by Wars (1913-2013)

MONUMENT 0: Haunted by wars (1913 – 2013), the first part of a series reflecting on the relationship between choreography and history. The choreographer and performer Eszter Salamon looks at the past 100 years as a history of wars, and together with six dancers brings to stage the tribal and folk dances, as well as other popular dance forms originated from the conflict zones of four continents. Embracing the approach of an archaeological history, this “dance macabre” brings about an impressively sombre yet stirring scenario bringing to light a different world and dance history.

That elsewhere is, however, not a unique “other place“. MONUMENT 0 is thus a feast devouring and reinterpreting movement paradigms that our modernity has erased in order to create a tabula rasa as its own historical fiction.

The score is based on a selection of wars that took place between 1913 and 2013 worldwide. The main criterion of the selection is the First, Western world's manifold implications in the wars happening elsewhere. The territories named in the score – which are the contexts where the dances performed on stage are transformed from – are those that have been attacked, invaded, violated or occupied during the armed conflicts.


Artistic direction Eszter Salamon Dramaturgical collaboration Ana Vujanović Choreography Boglárka Börcsök, Ligia Lewis, João Martins, Yvon Nana-Kouala, Luis Rodriguez & Corey Scott-Gilbert Dance Mario Barrantes Espinoza, Boglárka Börcsök, João Martins, Yvon Nana-Kouala, Sara Tan, Gervais Tomadiatunga Lights Sylvie Garot Sound Wilfrid Haberey Costumes Vava Dudu Costumes assistant Olivier Mulin Technical direction Michael Götz Theoretical advisor Djordje Tomić Production Botschaft Gbr/ Alexandra Wellensiek, Studio E.S./ Elodie Perrin Coproduction HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel (Hamburg), Les Spectacles Vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris), PACT Zollverein (Essen) as part of Départs / European Commission (Culture program), Tanzquartier (Vienna), Centre Chorégraphique de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon as part of the residency program With the support of Centre Chorégraphique National Ballet de Lorraine – Accueil Studio 2013 / 2014, the Regional Directory of Cultural Affairs of Paris – Ministry of Culture and Communication and the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN), Coproduction Fund for Dance for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag Thanks to Bureau Cassiopée, Yvane Chapuis, EDEN*****, Zohar Frank, Danielle Kaufmann, Moritz von Rappard, Alexandre Roccoli, Frédéric Seguette, Christophe Wavelet, Centre national de la danse, Pantin