Children and young people under the age of 18 pay €10 for any seat at family performances.
Even before the performance, children and young people can prepare for their ballet visit in workshops together with their parents. These age-appropriate introductions offer insight into the storyline, allow them to get to know the characters, and include dancing short scenes from the piece. The workshop takes place two hours before the performance begins.
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Wunderkammer as a Stage of Astonishment
In his new production Wunderkammer, Marcos Morau takes up the idea of the historical collections of the same name and transfers it to the stage: the theater space as a dream factory, where the unexpected happens.
The works of choreographer Marcos Morau are characterised by the art of surprise and the transformation of dance into a visual drama. With his company La Veronal in Barcelona, he creates works that exist between dance, theatre, visual arts and film. In his new production for the Staatsballett Berlin, Morau draws on the historical concept of the wonder cabinet and transforms it into a contemporary reflection on the theatre as a space that mirrors its own history and opens up new perspectives.
Art and wonder cabinets emerged during the Renaissance and were precursors to modern museums. They combined scientific objects, artefacts and artworks, reflecting both the thirst for knowledge and the assertion of power of their collectors. Closely related to these wonder cabinets were the so-called cabinets of curiosities, which became fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries. These collections were often smaller and focused less on representative items and more on particularly unusual and spectacular objects. These included relics, taxidermied animals with supposedly extraordinary properties, optical illusions, miniature models, or medical anomalies. Cabinets of curiosities were often run by private individuals, reflecting their personal fascination with the bizarre and the extraordinary. These cabinets had a lasting impact on the perception of the strange and the unknown. Like the treasures of the church before them, pieces from art and wonder cabinets evoked admiration and awe, stimulating the imagination. The astonishment at the way things are became a silent invitation to look beyond the obvious, serving as the first impulse of any insight and opening one up to the new and the unfamiliar.
For choreographer Marcos Morau, this concept provides fertile ground for his production. He is not interested in historical reconstruction, but in the potential of the wonder cabinet: «Theatre itself can be a wonder cabinet: a space where the unexpected happens, ideas collide, and emotions are stirred.» He recognises theatre as a place where perspectives can shift, identities can be questioned, and preconceptions can be subverted. His aim is not a museum-like display of historical collections, but a living realisation through dance, music, costume and stage design. Morau works with a visual language that moves between contrasts: between control and freedom. «The choreography captures the tension between chaos and order, freedom and structure,» Morau explains. «It is about creating layers of meaning without prescribing a single interpretation.»
Morau goes beyond mere amazement. Historically, wonder cabinets were not only spaces of curiosity but also of control – they organised the world from a Eurocentric perspective and established hierarchies. « Which stories remain hidden? And how can theatre be a space that opens up these perspectives? » asks the choreographer.
Morau invites the audience to enter their own inner wonder cabinet, a space of dreams and doubts, to reflect on their collected memories, experiences, and perceptions.
Text: Katja Wiegand
