In Dance for Nothing (revisited), Eszter Salamon revisits John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing (1949), a piece she initially engaged with in 2010 through her solo performance Dance for Nothing, which paired Cage’s words with her movement. This time, Salamon experiments with the modulation of physical movements, focusing on the sonic aspect of this seminal lecture on nothingness, void, and composition. She adds depth by listening to one of her past performances in which she repeated the text after a slowed-down recording by the American cellist and composer Frances-Marie Uitti, creating an auditory exploration of transmission and transformation. Salamon’s fusion of body, voice, and score sets the framework for a meditation on the simultaneity of movement and sound, and on interpretation.
Eszter Salamon is a choreographer, filmmaker, artist and performer. She lives and works in Berlin and Paris. In 2019, she won the Evens Art Prize. She won the La Vie Bonne call for projects organised by the National Centre for Plastic Arts (FR) and Aware: Archive of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions in 2020. In 2023, she received the prestigious Hedda Prize in the Best Scenography and Costume category for her costume design for MONUMENT 0.10: The Living Monument, created in collaboration with Carte Blanche. In 2025, she was appointed a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.
Salamon uses choreography to combine and structure a variety of media, including images, sounds, music, texts, voices and bodily movements and actions. Since 2001, she has created solo performances, large-scale projects, performative installations, and films, showcasing her works at performing arts venues and museums worldwide including Centre Pompidou Paris (FR), Centre Pompidou Metz (FR), Festival d’Automne (FR), Avignon Festival (FR), Ruhrtriennale (DE), Holland Festival (NL), The Kitchen New York (US), HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin (DE), Berlin Documentary Forum (DE), PACT Zollverein (DE), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (BE), Kaaitheater (BE), Tanzquartier Wien (AT), Kampnagel Hamburg (DE), steirischer herbst (AT), Manchester International Festival (UK), Nanterre-Amandiers (FR), FTA Montreal (CA), Dance Triennale Tokyo (JP), TheatreWorks Singapore (SG), Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro (BR), Movimiento Sur Valparaiso (CL).
She is frequently invited to present her work in museums, including MoMA (USA), Museo Reina Sofía Madrid (ES), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (ES), Serralves Foundation (PT), Akademie der Künste Berlin (DE), mumok (AT), 15th Baltic Triennial CAC Vilnius (LT), Kunstnernes Hus Oslo (NO), BHM Kiscelli Museum Budapest (HU), Cité international des arts, Paris (FR), Collection Lambert, Avignon (FR), Museum der Moderne Salzburg (AT), Villa Empain – Boghossian Foundation (BE), ING Art Center (BE), KINDL (DE), Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art) (NL), Museo Centro Gaiás, Santiago de Compostela (ES).
Her exhibition, Eszter Salamon 1949, was presented at Jeu de Paume (F) in 2014 as part of Satellite, curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez. Her large-scale performative installation, Study for the Valeska Gert Pavilion, was presented at the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art 2022. Following her films Reappearance (2022) and Sommerspiele (2023), her film installation Landscaping (2025) was shown for the first time at the 21st Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, and later at IRCAM in Paris as part of the Centre Pompidou’s Constellation projects. RED, a multilayered homage to Valeska Gert, will premiere in August 2026 at the Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel, Hamburg.
concept and dance Eszter Salamon
music John Cage
organisation and production Alexandra Wellensiek / Botschaft: Gbr, Elodie Perrin / Studio ES, Institute of Speculative Narration and Embodiment
thanks to Grazer Kunstverein, Tom Engels, Lilou Vidal
ph. Sebastian Reiser