NATIONAL PREMIERE
CO-PRODUCTION WITH ORIENTE OCCIDENTE
After Voronia and the grand tableau inspired by the life and art of Pablo Picasso, Los Pájaros Muertos under the dome of Mart, Marcos Morau returns to Oriente Occidente with his latest project, supported by an impressive array of European institutions. Pasionaria, his much-anticipated new work for eight dancers of La Veronal, is co-produced by Théâtre de Chaillot, Sadler’s Wells, Tanz Im August festival, Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Teatros del Canal, and Oriente Occidente. The company’s name, referring to the drug used by Virginia Woolf in her first suicide attempt, is itself a manifesto.
Known as an “arts insurgent,” Morau—an actor, dancer, and passionate film aficionado—creates pieces that dive from reality into the depths of the human psyche. For Pasionaria, he starts with the Latin term passio, -onis (from Greek pathos), which means both the act of suffering and the capacity to evoke emotions. The duality of its meaning drives Morau to examine how passion is expressed in our society today. “The world we live in,” he notes, “foreshadows a future devoid of feelings. Digital culture and technological progress push us toward the need to distinguish ourselves from robots and statues. I use these inert bodies on stage to look within ourselves, to search for discrepancies and to see if we are still alive.”
Pasionaria raises pressing questions about the emotional detachment of the modern world, reflects on the imposed ideal of progress, and criticizes the pervasive individualism and moral cowardice of our times. Believing that only a focus on passions can save humanity, Morau probes their origins and expressions, using Bach’s monumental music and a minimalist, ‘negative space’ set design. “I imagine a moving Pasionaria,” Morau continues, “a group that appears like mythical animals from the pages of a Bestiarium. Eight dancers move almost like us, speak almost like us, but cannot articulate what they lack to feel human. Just as a somber Caravaggio painting speaks of light, I want to highlight everything that is missing, everything that is absent, using the stage to display emptiness—a complete lack of passion.”
As often happens in Morau’s work, the result is unexpected: scenes taken from stark reality coexist with ethereal abstraction. Literal and narrative forms dissolve, blending into boundaryless images that resonate with the subconscious, inviting the audience to search for a spark within themselves.
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Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) supports La Veronal’s participation in the 2018 Oriente Occidente Festival through the Spanish Cultural Internationalization Program (PICE), under Mobility grants.
