Wunderkammer, choreographed by Marcos Morau with music by Clara Aguilar and Ben Meerwein and performed by Staatsballett Berlin, premiered on 31 October 2025 at the Komische Oper Berlin. With its striking scenes exploding one after another, it propels the audience through a dark sci-fi dream. The show continues until 23 April 2026.
Almost always, there is a mass of bodies on stage. They move with unquenchable energy and precision to the breathless tempo set by shifting music, light, and set design. The unrelenting pace coupled with a tense atmosphere create a sensation of being chased. Hunched torsos and twisted limbs in tight choreography and unisons. Jerky, abrupt, disjointed movements. Rhythmic stomps and sudden screams. Speedy gestures created using all of their physical expressiveness, from facial muscles to tongues and voices. No moment to hesitate, no beat to miss. No hierarchy, no gender roles. Abstract creatures of stunning physical skills execute controlled disorder. Waves of so many limbs intersecting, swaying, and dancing tirelessly cause vertigo. It is as if I am in a visceral dream of images that does not make logical sense in words. Its unwavering intensity gradually wears me out, but I cannot wake myself up.
Each scene feels like a turning of a page of a sci-fi novel. I imagine a distorted music box when one performer plays an accordion in the middle while the others crowd them around like dolls in a horror movie. When the dancers come downstage, very close to the audience, we can hear them whisper. Far upstage, blinding lights blink on and off, and the performers crowd towards them like moths. At one point, their bodies are piled on top of a huge shiny silver sculpture that looks like stacked boxes in the form of a pyramid. One dancer kneels on top and, writhing, reaches towards the beam of light shining from above. Others cover their faces with their hands repeatedly in the midst of a frantic choreography. I sense tragedy. I feel a sudden urge to stretch my arms out, embrace them, and hold their heaving, breath-rushed bodies.
Shakes and shudders. Soundless screams. Collective live spoken words rising in rhythmic chants. Just as the great multitude of overlapping body parts is starting to make me feel dizzy, a mirror emerges from upstage, doubling the entire image. At times, the extreme brightness of the lights hurts my eyes. The pages keep flipping, rushing deliriously through different worlds.
Toward the end, the lights in the audience come on as the stage lights go down. The large mirror reflects the crowd and we see ourselves. The dancers walk into the audience and begin to sing. For the first time in the performance, there is no blasting soundtrack; now we hear only the dancers’ voices carried by a distant rhythm.
The world sleeps tonight, they say, but…
Oh darkness, you embrace us to erase us.
Oh darkness, embrace us tonight.
Are they in our dreams?
Are we in their dreams?
Are we in each other’s dreams?
Are they real?
Are we real?
Are any of us real?
As the mirror disappears, a bright circular light rises upstage center. The performers turn their backs to us and walk slowly toward it, as if being pulled through a gate to a world of their own.
Wunderkammer by Marcos Morau, premiered on 31 October 2025 at Komische Oper Berlin.
