Abstract
Marcos Morau’s « Nachtträume» was the Ballett Zürich highlight of the year in 2022, lauded as a «dance panopticon and abysmal Gesamtkunstwerk of dance, text, music, and impressive images» (NZZ). In his ninety-minute piece, the Spanish choreographer undertakes a disturbing nightmare journey with Ballett Zürich into the realms of power, powerlessness, and mindless allegiance. He succeeds in creating a profound analysis of the present, in which power and vanity, envy and greed for profit, social Darwinism and economic primacy all too often have us in a stranglehold. Destruction and hope cleave tightly to each other in the dream world conjured up by an enigmatic queen, in which the ballet ensemble almost seems to dissolve into itself.