Bausch / Platel / Mahler - Adagio / Soûl

In dialogue with Gustav Mahler

With her early work Adagio, Pina Bausch created a compelling choreography based on the first part of Gustav Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony. The music, composed during a deep personal crisis, vibrates between ecstatic joy and poignant sorrow. Bausch constructs a poetic universe in which seemingly everyday encounters and simple gestures take center stage. The dancers experience extremes: from rapture to despair, from resistance to surrender. In doing so, they touch what fundamentally makes us human.

Alain Platel, artistic heir to Bausch, creates the new production Soûl ('intoxicated') with several dancers from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. Like Bausch, he draws inspiration from Gustav Mahler. The early symphonic poem Totenfeier, which would later be transformed into the first part of the second symphony 'Auferstehung', is a monumental funeral march. Through the dark score resound gentle, almost pastoral moments of hope. Within that tension, Platel poses an urgent question: might a light drunken state make this world more bearable?