Bausch / Platel / Mahler - Adagio / Soûl

In Dialogue with Gustav Mahler With her early work Adagio, Pina Bausch created a poignant choreography of the first part of Gustav Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony. The music, composed during a deep personal crisis, resonates between ecstatic happiness and piercing sorrow. Bausch builds a poetic universe in which seemingly everyday encounters and simple gestures are central. The dancers experience extremes: from rapture to despair, from resistance to surrender. In doing so, they touch what makes us fundamentally human. Alain Platel, artistic heir to Bausch, creates with several dancers from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen the new production Soûl ('drunk'). 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, gentle, almost pastoral moments of hope resound. Within that tension, Platel poses an urgent question: could a slightly intoxicated euphoria make this world more bearable?