Stepping out of the limelight and taking it easy as the years go by? Not for Valda and Gus! Being a dancer is a way of life, not just an occupation. With Valda Setterfield and Gus Solomons Jr., Eszter Salamon has brought together two of the legends of dance. Their lives are associated with influential art scenes, dance personalities and important historical developments: Valda Setterfield studied under Marie Rabert, danced with Merce Cunningham and Yvonne Rainer, worked with Robert Wilson, Brian De Palma and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and was a cofounder of the Pick Up Performance Co(s). Gus Solomons Jr. was also a dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. From 1996, with his artistic collective PARADIGM, he has been promoting the visibility of older performing artists. Located between fiction and history, the second part of Eszter Salamon’s series about the relation between choreography and history draws on a series of interviews with these two exceptional performers to question the currents of time, memory and testimony.
Coproduction LE CN D, un centre d’art pour la danse, PACT Zollverein, Tanzquartier, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Internationales Sommerfestival-Kampnagel
With the support of Regional Director for Cultural Affairs in Paris – The French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Département de la Seine-Saint-Denis, Institut Français à Paris, FUSED, Fondation Dar al-Ma’mûn, PARADIGM, Nanterre-Amandiers
With funding from NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN), Coproduction Fund for Dance supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media on the basis of a resolution passed by the German Bundestag.
With the support of FUSED French-US Exchange in Dance, a programme of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy of the United States, and FACE Foundation, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W.Mellon Foundation, the Florence Gould Foundation, and the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Thanks to French Institute Alliance Française, Julie Harrington
Eszter Salamon is Associated Artist at CN D