A cave as an allegory of hell: in their new work, “Voronia”, La Veronal, the Barcelona based company led by Marcos Morau, go in search of the concept of evil. Their investigation takes them into the bowels of the earth, into the deepest cavern in the world, the Krubera-Voronia cave in the Georgian Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. The cave is portrayed as a Dantean hell, a state of eternal descent. The company invokes the philosophies of St. Augustine by stating that, in the same way that darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good – a matter of categorization only of interest to humans. According to La Veronal, humanity created God to secure the boundaries of morality; God serves as the keeper of goodness and a moral refuge for humankind. But in the hands of God’s stewards, religion has gone to seed. For to kill in the name of God is to kill God and the absolute moral system. La Veronal have become synonymous with the inventive approach of using a geographical location as the springboard for the artistic exploration of a philosophical concept. Last year at Tanz im August they performed “Siena”, a surreal, philosophical homage to that city, with a plot torn from the pages of crime fiction. Their latest piece, “Voronia”, is a co-production with Tanz im August. Dance, text, and image interlock to form a labyrinthine drama revolving around a riddle that continually evades decryption. “Voronia” resembles an episodic drama, a descending movement of shifting images.

Marcos Morau studied choreography at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona, the Conservatorio Superior de Danza de Valencia and Movement Research in New York, obtaining the highest score on his final project and the Extraordinary Award of the Institut del Teatre. He did his choreographic assistantship project in the Nederlands Dans Theater II and the company IT Dansa, directed by Catherine Allard. His artistic skills are not limited to dance but extend into disciplines such as photography and drama, studying for an MA in the theory of drama. In 2005 Marcos Morau created La Veronal, a company formed by artists from dance, film, photography and literature. In 2013 Marcos Morau was awarded the National Dance Award of Spain by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. His creations have won awards in national and international choreography competitions in Hanover, Copenhagen and Madrid, at Masdanza. La Veronal was awarded Best Show for “Los Pájaros Muertos” in Fira Tarrega, and the Butaca Award (audience prize) for the Best Dance Performance 2013 for Siena. Marcos Morau and his team have begun to create for other companies of international repute, including the National Dance Company of Spain, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Skånes Dansteater, Norrdans, Ballet de la Generalitat Valenciana and Carte Blanche. La Veronal is present at important festivals and theatres around the world, e.g. Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, Biennale di Venezia, DanceSalad Festival Houston, Romaeuropa Festival, SIDance Festival Seoul, Sadler’s Wells London or Tanz im August.