Opening of Ballettfestwoche 2026 in Munich with "Common Ground"

Spiky cacti as trophies, urban group pressure and vulnerable beings

Ballet Director Laurent Hilaire concluded Ballet Festival Week 2026 with an overall attendance of 100 per cent. The opening event was the premiere of the new triple bill Common Ground on Saturday, 28 March 2026, in which choreographers Alexander Ekman and Johan Inger presented their work to the Bavarian State Ballet audience in Munich for the first time. Common Ground refers to a shared basis of human coexistence, and thus the audience can expect a performance that conveys anthropological statements through aesthetics and emotion.

In Common Ground, it is not only the prominent soloists who provide highlights; rather, it is above all the consistently high standard of the ensemble that convinces and impresses. It carries the evening. The Bavarian State Ballet presents itself as a powerful company that brings the choreographic richness of the three works to life with precision, energy and presence.

This is particularly evident in Alexander Ekman’s Cacti (world premiere 2010, The Hague), which reflects the art and cultural scene with sharp wit and ironic detachment. On a stage composed of white squares, a movement vocabulary unfolds that is both rhythmic and incisive: the dancers interact with bright platforms, generating percussive structures. Supported by a live string quartet performing music by Beethoven, Haydn and Schubert, the action is structured musically, creating a multilayered interplay of dance, sound and language. A spoken voice comments on the stage action with deliberately exaggerated interpretative zeal, thereby exposing the mechanisms of art criticism to absurdity.

When cacti finally appear on stage and are presented by the dancers like trophies, Ekman’s ironic perspective reaches a point of concentration: these seemingly meaningful objects reveal the tendency to overload art with excessive symbolism. Yet this exaggeration is not mere parody; it also hints at the vulnerability of artistic creation. Cacti invites the audience not to lose the experience of art in a thicket of interpretation, but to open themselves to its immediate impact – an idea that resonates beyond the performance. A particular highlight is the humorous and virtuoso pas de deux danced by Carollina Bastos and Osiel Gouneo.

With IMPASSE (world premiere 2020, The Hague), Johan Inger develops the idea of a shared foundation from Common Ground in a more unsettling direction. The title – the French term for a dead end – becomes immediately tangible in the stage space: confinement, density and the sense of having no escape shape the scene in which the ensemble moves.

What initially appears as almost innocent harmony quickly unfolds into a complex social structure. A trio (Violetta Keller, Severin Brunhuber, Soren Sakadales) opens the piece with clear, flowing movements, but the group soon expands, filling the space and overlaying the initial clarity. Six "City People" join the trio, a group that gradually occupies the stage space over the course of the piece. Later, a further six "Exotic People" are added.

New constellations continually emerge, dissolve and tip into opacity. Inger thus draws a precise picture of group dynamics in which conformity and loss of self lie close together. The choreography thrives on this constant escalation: from the initial order develops a pull that engulfs the dancers and increasingly blurs their individuality. Different "social strata" seem to appear; their movement qualities contrast and overlap until the stage space is filled with a restless bustle.

This development is driven by the energetic music of Ibrahim Maalouf, complemented by compositions by Amos Ben-Tal. Their rhythmic richness and sonic complexity lend the action additional urgency, propel the scenes forward and at the same time create moments of disruption.

With Bella Figura (world premiere 1995, The Hague), the third work of the evening in Common Ground, Jiří Kylián provides a profound counterpoint. Following the socially critical and often ironically refracted perspectives of Johan Inger and Alexander Ekman, a space of contemplation opens up here, focused entirely on the fragile balance between beauty and vulnerability.

Created in 1995, Kylián’s work unfolds as a loose sequence of images, set to baroque sound worlds, including music by Antonio Vivaldi and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Rather than narrative coherence, however, a poetic logic prevails: scenes emerge, fade and overlap – like memories or fleeting sensations. Light and darkness, visibility and concealment become independent dramaturgical forces. Moving curtains cut through the space, frame bodies, withdraw them from view again and thus question the boundary between stage and reality.

At its core lies the idea of bella figura – maintaining composure even in moments of greatest strain or vulnerability. Kylián translates this concept into a movement language that combines classical lines with abrupt ruptures. Technical precision and controlled elegance stand alongside moments of pause, instability and exposure.

A striking visual motif is provided by the red silk skirts worn equally by male and female dancers, all bare-chested. They form a luminous counterpoint to the otherwise reduced stage aesthetic. Gender boundaries dissolve; emotions appear as something shared, something universal.

Following the premiere of Common Ground, Laurent Hilaire promoted three members of the company. Corps de ballet dancers Phoebe Schembri and Ana Gonçalves will now dance as demi-soloists. Demi-soloist Clark Eselgroth was promoted to soloist.

---

Information: Review of the premiere performance of Common Ground on 28 March 2026, opening of Ballettfestwoche 2026 of the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich.

Photos: © Serghei Gherciu and © Nicholas Mackay

Text: Bettina Krogemann