Marcos Morau Turns Classical Ballet Into Something Stranger and More Cinematic
Today’s Performance Choice of the Day is very à la French — Étude by Marcos Morau at the Opéra national de Paris, to be exact.
Morau choreographed the whole she-bang for the Paris Opera Ballet as part of the Empreintes program at the Palais Garnier, where it ran from March 11 through March 28, 2026. The Spanish choreographer takes familiar ballet language and pulls it into something darker, more graphic and far more theatrical.
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Performance Choice: Marcos Morau’s Étude
Classical ballet imagery gets twisted through Marcos Morau’s cinematic eye — tutus, ritual, shadow, repetition and movement that feels half stage picture, half dream.
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Étude Rebuilds the Imagery of Ballet From the Inside Out
According to the Paris Opera, Morau drew directly from the visual language of classical dance — tiaras, tutus, curtain-call flowers, barre work, warmups, center exercises and backstage preparation — then rearranged those familiar ingredients into something newly strange. The goal was not to reject ballet tradition, but to revisit its collective imagination through Morau’s own visual vocabulary.
The work also explores the relationship between darkness and light: not just stage lighting as decoration, but light as the thing that lets imagination and creation survive uncertainty, doubt and shadow. That idea gives Étude its eerie, almost ceremonial atmosphere.
The Creative Team Behind Étude
Morau’s choreography is paired with music by Gustave Rudman, sets by Max Glaenzel and costumes by Silvia Delagneau. The Paris Opera’s listed cast includes Laurène Levy, Naïs Duboscq, Luna Peigné, Alexandre Boccara and Hugo Vigliotti among the featured dancers.
That combination matters because Étude does not read like choreography dropped onto a neutral stage. Movement, costume, architecture and image all work together, which is very much Morau’s lane: his work repeatedly treats dance as something that can collide with photography, cinema, sculpture and visual art rather than staying politely inside one discipline.
Étude by Marcos Morau at the Paris Opera in Images
More imagery from Morau’s Étude for the Paris Opera Ballet.
Modern ballet manifestation indeed. This is exactly the kind of piece that reminds you ballet can still be elegant, severe, bizarre and visually aggressive all at once.
Watch Étude by Marcos Morau at the Opéra national de Paris
The video below presents Morau’s Étude in the Paris Opera context surrounding the 2026 Empreintes program.
Sources: Opéra national de Paris; Paris Opera Play; AROP.
