Salomania

Germany, 2009. Directors Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz.

Salomania reconstructs the ‘dance of the seven veils’ from Alla Nazimova’s 1923 silent film Salomé and features sections from ‘Valda’s Solo’ which the choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer created after having seen Nazimova’s film. Salomania takes up Salomé as a transgender figure and the motif of a queer appropriation of the exotic. At the beginning of the 20th century, ‘Salomania’ gripped stage and screen performers alike as they took, in their droves, to dancing the dance of the seven veils. The figure of Salomé stood for sexual freedom and became an icon of ‘sodomite’ subjectivity. The film features Rainer performing alongside artist Wu Ingrid Tsang.

With Yvonne Rainer and Wu Ingrid Tsang.

Past screenings

Birds of Paradise – London
Saturday 4 December 2010, 19:00 | Tate Modern
Screened as a part of the programme ‘Unrestrained Indulgence’.