Abstract
Marcos Morau’s “Nachtträume” was Zurich Ballet’s highlight of the 2022 season, praised by Neue Zürcher Zeitung as a “dance panopticon and an abysmal Gesamtkunstwerk of dance, text, music, and striking imagery. In this ninety-minute work, the Spanish choreographer leads Zurich Ballet on a disturbing nightmare journey into realms of power and powerlessness, blind allegiance and submission. Morau succeeds in delivering a profound analysis of the present, exposing how power and vanity, envy and the pursuit of profit, social Darwinism and economic primacy all too often hold society in their grip. In the dream world conjured by an enigmatic queen, destruction and hope are inextricably intertwined, while the ballet ensemble appears at times to dissolve into itself.
