During the warm Gallery Weekend there was more than contemporary art to see in Berlin. The Staatsballett presented their newest productions, a double bill featuring some of the most sought-after contemporary choreographers: the Spanish Marcos Morau, currently artist-in-residence at the Staatsballett, and the ethereal Canadian Crystal Pite.
The lofty topics, the endless cycle of development and destruction of society, and the terrestrial and celestial nature of the universe of which we are a reflection of, could not materialise more differently on stage. An aesthetically pleasing yet dramaturgically uneven bill, it was a feast for experimental enthusiasts.
Balanchine is recalled to have said: “In ballet, you cannot say ‘I hate my mother-in-law’”. This possibly seems the most convenient way of expressing my perplexity seeing Overture. Marcos Morau is well-known for his work with his company La Veronal. His works are often critical and witty, with unusual and realistic settings, and tongue-in-cheek references to art and contemporary politics. That is why I expected a good amount of humour upon hearing such an epic opening as Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Instead, the action was neither comic nor tragic, rather oddly neutral. The scenography was astonishing: the gigantic column at the start multiplies into a forest, with at least 16 of them, recreating the atmosphere of a temple. Standing for an entire society, columns from Ancient Greece are said to reproduce the proportions of a human body, thus doubling the references to human society.
Still, the glossy action kept me at a distance. Roughly divided into three parts: establishing a social coexistence (the erection of the column by the group), a stable yet fluid social co-existence (dancers aimlessly running on and off the stage and hiding behind the maze of columns), and the collapse and rebirth of a new social order. The references to current political events are clear but it is almost a theoretical explanation of the matter, with little emotion.
The thirty-four dancers have brilliantly mastered Morau’s movement language: a mixture of nervous gestures, pedestrian movements and fluid lines. Memorable scenes are when, at the beginning, like ants, the dancers crawl around the monumental scenography, their individual identity lost to the group. The chiaroscuro lighting and the nude coloured costumes underline the flesh. And then when brightly clad on a rotating platform, their repetitive motions create a sort of zoetrope. Has Morau played it too safe?
Crystal Pite is to choreography what a starchitect is to architecture. Angels’ Atlas (2020), created during the pandemic, premiered with the National Ballet of Canada. The piece also depicts the human condition, but from a bird's perspective: it has a transcendental yet visceral touch. The emotional connection is established right away through movement and music bringing the audience into feeling rather than thinking. The work opens with a beautiful light installation by Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser. The backdrop design reflects the lights through uneven surfaces offering the illusion of an otherworldly three-dimensional floating object between the rings of smoke and the northern light, the hot sparks of a fire burning or a cascade of lights.
The collage of music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Morten Lauridsen and Owen Belton, grants a preternatural, almost sacred mood. The movement material is close to Jiří Kylián’s fluid movement language to which small hectic gestures have been added. Most of the time, the thirty-five dancers seem to defy gravity and fly, the arms as wings in a V shape either added to a brisé devant or to a sauté en arabesque. The partnering sequences are also close to Kylián’s sculptural compositions, though it is the upright lightness that is underlined rather than the counter and off-balance positions. The sensation I had throughout the dance was of the sacredness of each existence and what can be achieved through collaboration and mutual support. A memorable image has been that of the lonely dancer in the background, like the outline of a statue by Giacometti, slowly walking across the stage supported by the light installation following the movement, while another dancer in the front continued their solo in a ring of light.
It is still light outside as we leave the opera, and we have the impression of having been very far away and need time to come back to reality. I let the emotional aftertaste echo within me a little longer. It is great to see so many dancers: many effects can only be conveyed by using a mass of people on stage, especially trying to capture the universality of the human condition. I highly recommend the programme if you feel like travelling to a dream state, away from logical cognition to the visceral, to the intuition of the body to reach beyond it.
