Wunderkammer

Artist-in-Residence choreographer Marcos Morau is a master at translating collective memories into movement and visual language. With his theatrical worlds, he evokes familiar places while simultaneously transforming them into dreamlike and surreal realms. Renowned for his profound and surreal imagery, Marcos Morau draws inspiration from a wide array of influences—ranging from literature and photography to the aesthetics of film. This fusion lends his works a cinematic quality that feels both nostalgic and futuristic.

In his new full-length work, Wunderkammer, created for the Staatsballett Berlin, Marcos Morau returns to his distinctive movement vocabulary, seamlessly combining elements of dance, theatre, and music in his signature style to craft a Gesamtkunstwerk that transcends traditional choreography.

The title Wunderkammer refers to the historical «cabinets of curiosities» that flourished in Renaissance and Baroque Europe as collections of extraordinary and ‹curious› objects. In these cabinets, objects from science, art, and nature were gathered and unified, celebrating the fascinating and the foreign. Similarly, Marcos Morau envisions the stage as a ‹chamber›—a space brimming with surprises and unexpected perspectives—to explore the concept of the ‹foreign› within oneself. Through these themes, he also reflects on the nature of the theatre stage and its unique characteristics. Morau's creation delves into universal subjects such as the longing for belonging and the need to define one’s identity in an increasingly complex world. Wunderkammer thus becomes an emotional mirror of our time.