Bausch / Platel / Mahler - Adagio / Soûl

In dialogue with Gustav Mahler With her early work Adagio, Pina Bausch created a poignant choreography of the first movement of Gustav Mahler's unfinished tenth symphony. The music, composed during a deep personal crisis, vibrates between ecstatic happiness and poignant sorrow. Bausch builds a poetic universe in which seemingly everyday encounters and simple gestures take centre stage. 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 of 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 resound gentle, almost pastoral moments of hope. Within that arc of tension, Platel poses an urgent question: could a light drunken intoxication make this world more bearable?