Nijinsky: Faun

Nijinsky: Faun
By Jane Bustin
Performed live by John Snijders & Eric Pinto Cata
For Maria Lassnig: Film, Music and Performance, 13 February 2022

Jane Bustin

Jane Bustin (b. 1964, London) studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic and lives and works in London; her practice spans a decade of single works in painting and ceramic as well as installation, text, film and performance. She uses multiple materials, and her work is based around the poetic language of painting, modernist literature, feminism and extending the links between craft, concept and movement. Bustin's work has been exhibited widely nationally, including Whitechapel, London, Royal Academy, London, Walker Gallery, Liverpool, Kettles Yard, Cambridge and Ferens Museum, Hull and internationally in Berlin, New York, Paris, Sydney and Auckland. Bustin has work in public collections, including Victoria & Albert Museum, Ferens Museum and Yale Centre. She is represented by Copperfield, London, Jane Lombard New York and Fox Jensen Sydney.

Nijinsky: Faun is a collaborative work between artist Jane Bustin, composer John Snijders and young ballet dancer Eric Pinto Cata that pays homage to Vaslav Nijinsky's tumultuous life. Expanding on Ninjinsky's formal experimentation, the performance comprises five table-mounted assemblages, a musical score and a balletic performance.

Eric Pinto Cata

Eric Pinto Cata is a ballet dancer trained at the Royal Ballet school and is currently part of the Birmingham Royal Ballet Company. He has performed at the Birmingham Hippodrome, Royal Opera House and Sadler Wells, amongst others.

John Snijders

John Snijders was born in Heemskerk (the Netherlands) in 1963. He studied at the Royal Conservatory The Hague with Geoffrey Madge (piano), Stanley Hoogland (fortepiano) and Louis Andriessen (composition). In 1985 he won first prize at the Berlage Competition for Dutch chamber music 1840-1940. Snijders performed as soloist with a.o. the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, The Brussels Philharmonic, The Hague Philharmonic, Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Chamber Orchestra and Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 1988 until 2013, he was a member of the Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam. In 1986 he founded the Ives Ensemble, of which he continues to be a pianist and artistic director. Since 2013 Snijders has been a member of the contemporary music groups Ensemble7Bridges and E7B Soundlab, and since 2021 he has been a founding member of the North-East based group for new music, Contrazontal.

Videography by Chris Haddock.