MONUMENT 0.10: The Living Monument

Choreographer Eszter Salamon uses a broad range of formats and expressions when she explores contemporary themes. The Living Monument is built on still life, slowness and the presence of the body. The production is a part of Salamon’s MONUMENT-series which since 2014 has explored how monuments can conserve our memories and create spaces of liberation and inclusivity – this is the fundamental idea behind Salamon’s inquisitive contemporary choreography.   

The Living Monument begins in a black landscape inhabited by creatures dressed in glittering materials and creaking leather. The performance then slowly moves into new colour schemes where the audience can relive their own visual memories and create their own images. Each tableau is bound together by Carmen Villain’s dynamic score which floats over the stage and boosts the experience.   

In the performance, a world based on colour and slowed movement is created. In a magnificent scenography the audience is taken on a meditative journey through vibrant tableaux in a dreamlike universe where time almost stands still. The Living Monument invites the audience to slow down and immerse themselves in the sensory impressions and figures that appear in the endless landscapes on the scene. 

• Eszter Salamon lives and works in Berlin and Paris. She is currently a PhD Research Fellow at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She won the Evens Art Prize 2019 and La vie bonne call for projects by the National Center for Plastic Arts (FR) and Aware: Archive of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions in 2020. Salamon’s productions have been shown at institutions and festivals such as MoMa in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Julidans in Amsterdam, Tanzquartier in Vienna, Festival d’Avignon and Tanz im August in Berlin.