About the work
Overture is a dance work by the Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau, premiered on 28 April 2024 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden by the Staatsballett Berlin — Morau's first creation as the company's "Artist in Residence". To three live-played movements from Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony, Morau, known for his image-powerful, photographically intense tableaux, designs a politically charged movement fresco for a large ensemble.
Plot
Some 36 dancers struggle with a huge black column lying on the ground — an enigmatic object that recalls a relic from apocalyptic times and evokes an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean. The group tries to grasp the object, to occupy it, to take possession of it. Morau links the column with the idea of democracy born in antiquity and of social structures that are erected only to be destroyed and begun anew. The piece asks about departure and transformation: how long can a society survive without change?
Cultural significance
Overture marks the beginning of Morau's multi-year collaboration with the Staatsballett Berlin under Christian Spuck. The Spaniard, who never trained as a dancer and became one of the most celebrated choreographers of the present with his company La Veronal, brings his expressionist body language and cinematically composed images as an idiosyncratic, hypermodern signature to the great ballet stage.