Eszter Ballint
tells new stories
through song
BY BOB KRASNER
Eszter Balint has stories to tell, whether she likes
it or not.
“I have a bit of a tumultuous relationship with
nostalgia, never mind sentimentality,” she states. “I don’t
want to dwell in the past or romanticize things.” The
singer/songwriter/musician/actress, who makes her
home with her 17-year-old son in lower Manhattan,
has a past that is full of tales that are fi nding their way
into her current project: a theatrical song cycle with the
working title “I Hate Memory.”
Born in Budapest and raised by an avant-garde theatre
collective founded by her parents, Balint lived in Hungary,
Paris, Holland and the UK before settling into NYC
in 1977 at age 12. After a brief stint in the Chelsea Hotel,
the troupe settled into their own building on West 23rd
St., where the Squat Theatre began its legendary run
alternating experimental theatre productions with live
music that featured the cream of downtown’s post-punk
scene. “By the time I was 13, this was my crowd, ” Balint
relates. “The Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras, Kid Creole,
DNA, the Contortions, Sun Ra,” she recalls. “I used
to watch the 50 or so members of Sun Ra’s orchestra
loading in when I came home from school.”
Eszter Balint playing violin in the misty fog of memory.
“I became the house DJ and I spent a lot of time
hanging out with adults,” Balint recalls. “I was a good
student but it got to the point where school interfered
with my night life.”
Eventually, the young artiste found herself in a
30-minute short fi lm directed by Jim Jarmusch, acting
alongside downtown musicians turned actors John Lurie
and Richard Edson. Jarmusch managed to extend it into
a feature, “Stranger Than Paradise “, which went on to
win awards worldwide and turn Balint into something
of a celebrity.
“It was sudden, shocking, confusing,” she recalls. “I
was 18 when I showed up at a screening and people I had
never seen before wanted my autograph. The attention
was jarring. ”
Although she had some subsequent roles that were
very meaningful to her – acting with David Bowie in
“The Linguini Incident” and Steve Buscemi in “Trees
Lounge”, to name two – her heart was not in movies.
“I was quietly pursuing classical singing,” she says.
“I moved to LA in 1990 and considered going to a
conservatory, but I realized that I was not going to be
a classical singer. It was then a long, painful road to
unlearn the classical tropes. “Balint, who had always
written poems and prose for herself, began to create
her own songs and eventually performed them onstage,
but not without some anxiety. “I had a rep as an actress
and the baggage that went with that. I felt exposed and
insecure. The fi rst gig was a disaster, but music was my
true passion.
”The singer fondly – and sadly – recalls how her
fi rst LP, “Flicker”, came to be. “Adam Shlesinger, who
recently passed away from COVID, put up the money
for my fi rst album on his label, Scratchie Records. I feel
like I never thanked him properly.”
Balint, now back in NYC, “had a million different
jobs” while performing in the city and elsewhere, but ”
PHOTOS BY BOB KRASNER
the album didn’t happen.”
She made a second album, the critically acclaimed
“Mud” and then took a break from music to raise her
son, which she does not regret.
” I loved being a mother,” she admits. “But I kept writing
and I got to the point where if I didn’t do something,
I would explode.” The next creative burst resulted in
“Airless Midnight”, an album that fi nds reviewers using
words like wry, surreal, gothic and wistful to convey
her sensibility.
Her next project, unfortunately, got sidelined by the
pandemic. Scheduled to debut at Dixon Place in March
2020, Balint’s “sort of a musical” exploration of her
youth is a collaboration with Stew (Passing Strange, The
Negro Problem), who Balint calls “amazingly talented.”
“I think this show is mostly rooted in feeling the
tones of my memories, capturing the essence of that
history somewhat like an impressionistic painting, ” she
explains. “We want to tell the story in a way that is truthful,
but some of us don’t necessarily want to hang out
too long with those older versions of ourselves. I think
that I address and resolve these issues to some degree
by playfully addressing them within the show, with the
hope that some people can relate. And by making songs
out of them – which is my favorite thing to do.”
Although the lockdown gave Balint the time to rethink
the show as a fi lm project, she is very much missing
performing live. “I have a new appreciation for the audience,”
she muses. “They provide a kind of magic – some
mysterious energy that happens – there’s nothing like it.”
Balint has returned to performing via live streaming
on Howl! TV. There are two more shows on upcoming
Tuesdays in April at 8 pm at howlarts.org, where she
will be presenting songs and monologues from “I Hate
Memory.”
Eszter can be followed on Instagram @eszter.balint
and online ateszterbalint.com
Eszter Balint at home with her 1960’s era
Silvertone 1448, a guitar available at Sears that
came with an amp in the case.
10 April 15, 2021 Schneps Media
link
/howlarts.org
/ateszterbalint.com
