Bausch / Platel / Mahler - Adagio / Soûl

In dialogue with Gustav Mahler With her early work Adagio, Pina Bausch created a gripping choreography based on the first movement of Gustav Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony. The music, composed during a deep personal crisis, shimmers between ecstatic happiness and poignant sorrow. Bausch builds 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 upon what makes us fundamentally human. Alain Platel, artistic heir to Bausch, creates the new production Soûl ('drunk') 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 movement of the second symphony 'Auferstehung', is a monumental funeral march. Through the dark score, gentle, almost pastoral moments of hope resound. Within this span of tension, Platel poses an urgent question: could a slightly drunken reverie make this world more bearable?