With Voronia, Marcos Morau, artistic director of Barcelona-based La Veronal, draws on the image of Krubera Voronia, the deepest cave on earth, to explore the idea of evil. Through the work, he shares his thoughts about the human condition. Abandon all hope: Voronia is a descending speleological journey to Dantean hell with a touch of David Lynch.
Dressed like hospital janitors, the dancers slowly sweep and vacuum the stage as the public finds its way to the seats. As the lights go off, the space is occupied by bizarre creatures dressed in black and white nervously beating their hands against their hips like flies, or writhing in agony on the red carpet that partially covers the stage. Rather than classical lines, virtuoso jumps and romantic duets, disarranged grand battements, claw-like fingers and truncated arm movements “greet” the audience. The characters are capable of travelling, turning, bending and dancing together as a group, but these sequences are frequently interrupted by shock-like, jerking movements.
The first – outstanding – solo shows a male character struggling to stand up and move, while a combination of intrinsic malfunction and external forces that control the dancer as a puppet prevents him from escaping. The illusion of free will, the incapacity of coordination between different parts of the body and also among the characters, and the certainty of failure, are present throughout the piece.
An elevator – in fact sliding doors located upstage – transports the audience to different circles of hell. In one of the most intense moments of the piece, we are confronted with some sort of “last supper”, danced to the sound of the famous intermezzo of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Imprisoned in this tableau, some characters try once more to move and break free but fail to do so, while others remain impassible (or conformed) before this situation. The beauty of the score contrasts with the grotesque movements of the dancers and the sound of glasses being overturned on a fancily dressed dinner table by clumsy waiters. Particularly moving is the part where a desperate guest (Sau-Ching Wong, in a theatrical performance of extraordinary dramatic force) tries to convince her peers to escape, just to realise instants later that there is no way out. While one cannot understand the words, her voice and gestures convey the anger, the frustration and the profound sadness of someone who has no choice but to endure her eternal fate. At the end of the dinner, lights go on and the nature of the bond established between artists and audience changes: we are no longer spectators of this journey to hell, but a part of it.