Obsessions

ADAGIO & SCHERZO
Choreography: Krzysztof Pastor
Music: Franz Schubert – String Quintet in C major, D. 956, movements 2, 3
Stage Designer & Projections: Małgorzata Szabłowska

RETURNING WAVES
Choreography: Emil Wesołowski
Music: Mieczysław Karłowicz – Symphonic Poem Op. 9

MOVING ROOMS
Choreography: Krzysztof Pastor
Music: Alfred Schnittke – Concerto grosso I
(Cadenza – Rondo – Postludio)
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki – Concert for Harpsichord and String Orchestra, Op. 40

Premiere: 29 March 2014

Obsessions engulf us, they disturb, torture and torment. Fears and fascinations, suspicions and jealousies, spectres of the past and grim forebodings: art reacts to them, expressing, stimulating, warning, sometimes soothing. This also applies to ballet and dance theatre – and is the most effective in small spaces. In this show, obsessions accompany Poland’s two leading choreographers.

Both of Krzysztof Pastor’s compositions, each in its own way, play with our moods and emotions using pure choreographic form, the visual power of neo-classical dance, the colours of the space and the play of light, accompanied by the music of great masters: Schubert, Schnittke and Gorecki.

These two pieces are separated by Emil Wesołowski’s distinctive ballet for two dancers in which the simplest relations between a man and a woman keep changing their hues and hit the viewer like the waves of Mieczysław Karłowicz’s symphonic poem.

Polish National Ballet
Recorded music