Melodrama
The Hungarian-born choreographer Eszter Salamon was already in search of her dance-biographical roots in 2005 with her piece “Hungarian Dances”. During a trip to her homeland in 2006 she made the acquaintance of another Eszter Salamon.
Melodrama is a solo performance, in which Eszter Salamon re-enacts interviews she made in 2006 and 2012 with that person living in a small village in Southern Hungary. Reading her homonym, Salamon embodies the 62 year-old woman's life-story and by memory revisits her gestures, thoughts and emotions onstage, thus offering the possibility for the spectators to experience the course of a lifetime within the performance's duration.
The result is a meditation not just on the possibility of getting inside another person's skin, but the extent to which personal hopes and desires exceed the stereotypical determinations of class, age, geography and religion. Here, the narrative is woven as much by the personal history of the protagonist as by that of her country, that of Europe, past and present.
The premiere’s been held at the House of World Cultures Berlin Documentary Forum– a festival dedicated to documentary as a performative act. A choreographer as guest at a documentary film forum is less exotic than it may sound. After all, issues of memorability and testimony, of authenticity and fiction have linked film and dance for some time.
Concept, direction and performance Eszter Salamon Interviews
Krimerné Dr. Eszter Salamon and Eszter Salamon Text editing Eszter Salamon and Lindy Annis Proofreading and coaching Lindy Annis Music
Terre Thaemlitz Voice editing Sabine Ercklentz Visuals Angela Anderson
Translation Péter Komlósi Technical direction Carola Caggiano
Organisation and production Alexandra Wellensiek/Botschaft, Studio E.S./Elodie Perrin Thanks to Sylvie Garot, Erzsébet Salamon, Ferenc Salamon, Minze Tummescheit, Saša Asentić, Bojana Cvejić, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Hebbel am Ufer Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Co-produced by Berlin Documentary Forum 2 (Berlin), far°-festival des arts vivants (Nyon), Next Festival (Valenciennes) Supported by Le Kwatt
The Hungarian-born choreographer Eszter Salamon was already in search of her dance-biographical roots in 2005 with her piece “Hungarian Dances”. During a trip to her homeland in 2006 she made the acquaintance of another Eszter Salamon.
Melodrama is a solo performance, in which Eszter Salamon re-enacts interviews she made in 2006 and 2012 with that person living in a small village in Southern Hungary. Reading her homonym, Salamon embodies the 62 year-old woman's life-story and by memory revisits her gestures, thoughts and emotions onstage, thus offering the possibility for the spectators to experience the course of a lifetime within the performance's duration.
The result is a meditation not just on the possibility of getting inside another person's skin, but the extent to which personal hopes and desires exceed the stereotypical determinations of class, age, geography and religion. Here, the narrative is woven as much by the personal history of the protagonist as by that of her country, that of Europe, past and present.
The premiere’s been held at the House of World Cultures Berlin Documentary Forum– a festival dedicated to documentary as a performative act. A choreographer as guest at a documentary film forum is less exotic than it may sound. After all, issues of memorability and testimony, of authenticity and fiction have linked film and dance for some time.
Concept, direction and performance Eszter Salamon Interviews
Krimerné Dr. Eszter Salamon and Eszter Salamon Text editing Eszter Salamon and Lindy Annis Proofreading and coaching Lindy Annis Music
Terre Thaemlitz Voice editing Sabine Ercklentz Visuals Angela Anderson
Translation Péter Komlósi Technical direction Carola Caggiano
Organisation and production Alexandra Wellensiek/Botschaft, Studio E.S./Elodie Perrin Thanks to Sylvie Garot, Erzsébet Salamon, Ferenc Salamon, Minze Tummescheit, Saša Asentić, Bojana Cvejić, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Hebbel am Ufer Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Co-produced by Berlin Documentary Forum 2 (Berlin), far°-festival des arts vivants (Nyon), Next Festival (Valenciennes) Supported by Le Kwatt
