Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau comes from a background in photography and dramaturgy, not dance, but his obsession with movement and tasteful creativity made him one of the most trending choreographers of today. How does a non-dance artist make dance art? And could art be medicine for the mind, surreal escape, or both simultaneously? In a discussion with ICONS, Marcos Morau shares his creative processes and uniquely coined improvisation system entitled KOVA, which is a signature for his movement language.

ICONS: How, when, and with whom did you start your dance company, La Veronal?

Marcos Morau: My first project was when I was studying choreography in Valencia in 2005. After the first two years, I wanted to present a piece with some of my colleagues -- dancers and I decided on the name La Veronal because in that period I was obsessed with Virginia Wolf, and she killed herself with an overdose of the anti-depressant called veronal.

I started in Valencia with some of the dancers that still work with me. Then when I moved to Barcelona, I had to start from zero. I immediately received support from Mercat de les Flors and I presented a piece there with dancers from my course. The director of the theatre was also jury of the contest, and I won the first prize in two competitions. Now I mostly dance with Lorena Nogal, Marina Rodríguez, and Ariadna Montfort, but there are many others who are part of La Veronal.

ICONS: How do you create movement and what is your artistic approach as a choreographer?

MM: Because I was not a dancer, I had to find a way to communicate with the dancers. I had to connect to the space, to the qualities, to the connections between the extremities, the head and hands, and I invited the dancers to play, to investigate in that direction. Together we try to build the essence of the sequence.

For example, can we work in the direction of the limits or the emptiness. With those questions in mind, we started to create concepts around the compositions. I started to combine these with feelings, emotions, the characters, with the context of the theatre, space, lights, costumes, and together we started the “language.” For me it’s a mix of intuition, a mix of taste, a combination of different elements.

ICONS: You are known for using “KOVA movement language”: Is that your system of producing new movement, or your system of movement vocabulary that you repeatedly use?

MM: This style or “language” is in constant evolution. I use and change that bag of tools when I want. Kova is developing, changing, adapting to our needs and points of view on the reality, which is always different. Kova is with us when we need it, but it changes according to different projects. I don’t use it in every project. Kova is more about understanding how to use the body, the isolation, the gaze, etc., but we are not victims of it.

ICONS: What does the abbreviation “KOVA” stand for and what does it mean?

MM: It means nothing specific. In Finnish it means hard, harsh, and difficult. I think of it as a style, or better, a flavor, an aesthetic, an obsession. I don’t define it as a language because for me, language is Italian, Spanish, French, and so on. I don’t fall in the branding style. Kova has lots of tools and exercises and a lot of ways to build, create and improvise that are very useful for the performers. It’s a way to approach the body with concrete tension and, and also open creativity.

ICONS: Is the KOVA style created predominantly by Lorena Nogal, or is she just the physical embodiment and the illustration of the system?

MM: Lorena and I worked together in a residency in Dublin, Ireland, with Imma and Cristina, and we said, if we start to analyze what we don’t like, then we will find our own style. That was in 2011. From then on, the “language” was changing and adapting to us. This “language” makes sense for the dancers of La Veronal who changed it. Everyone has a different approach to it.

ICONS: You dedicate strong attention to a thorough synchronicity and to details that bring a particular aesthetic to your pieces. What fascinates you about synchronicity?

MM: I love to watch bodies working together, and at the same time, in all my pieces there are a lot of individualities. But when we are playing together, I like to work with connections. Synchronicity is one of them, and it’s very pure and connected with the rhythmic gymnastics, as in synchronized swimming.

Those are part of my references because my first approach to dance comes from artistic sports; that’s why it’s always present. It’s a fight because the commercials, the mainstream are very synchronized, and modern/contemporary dance is usually not synchronized -- it is more free, more casual, more inorganic, more random. I think we can be more synchronized being very contemporary, independent and interesting. It’s a different way to approach the interconnectivity of bodies. This allows the images to generate a rhythm, a power in terms of community, full of repetition and presence.

ICONS: To what extent are you inspired by and do you incorporate in your work other art disciplines such as fashion, visual art, and filmmaking?

MM: Nowadays the borders of art are very fluid -- everything is interconnected. We have to cross the path. Kae Tempest -- activist, artist, poet -- says that everything is connected in the arts. For me the important place is the scenario, the stage. You can play there with dance, opera, images and so on. There shouldn’t be boundaries within the arts. Everything should be connected to your needs and your ideas. This gives depth to what is created. It’s good to have a panoramic knowledge of the arts.

ICONS: You are particularly drawn to Surrealism and particularly to Luis Buñuel. What do you find fascinating about that particular art movement?

MM: I think Buñuel, in particular in Spain, is an important point of reference for people who are creating images and generating speeches and sequences. Buñuel opened many doors, also influenced by surrealism. Surrealism is nice because it allows you to do everything, and intuition is more present than ever. You have intuition and it doesn’t have logic; thinking this somehow allows you to be free and fly free. I try to invent a new world and to invent this new world where everything is crossing me. I am interested in how I am mixing the world with my fears, my desires, my memories, my practices, and I think surrealism is connected with that. We try to dream free because everything that you provoke is connected to you. I find this very important and true. I like to generate new visuals of the world.

ICONS: How would you define your work: as literal or abstract, as narrative or plotless?

MM: Many people are comparing my works to Francis Bacon’s works. He is in the middle of figurative paintings and abstraction. You can see some place and bodies but you don’t know who they are or what’s happening because the borders are very blurry and the tension between the space is not logical. It’s very creepy, very weird. You recognize things but you don’t know what’s happening and you know that they are talking about us. I feel very comfortable playing in that level of abstraction in the figurative or narrative context, but not literally.

ICONS: Your work often depicts dark and dystopian scenarios. What attracts you to such type of content, or do you simply use the background of a grim reality to emphasize hope?

MM: I don’t know if hope is present - maybe it’s always present. Otherwise, we are lost. But I try to cover this dystopian context that we are living now. All the places, all the stages, and all the creations that I am doing are made out of beauty, but at the same time they hide something dark or frustrating. It’s a place where you don’t want to live; it’s a place that you observe but where you don’t want to be. This is how I support my creativity, generating places where there are oppositions of life. In that space that I’m creating and that I’m living, there is hope.

ICONS: How do you relate to dreams in your work as a choreographer and director?

MM: I am very well connected to my dreams, but not the dreams while sleeping, the dreams that I have while awake -- when I am walking the streets, visualizing people, seeing things around me. This is the creativity. Dreams while asleep are usually connected to fears, while the dreams while awake are connected to creation. I prefer the day dreams that come up while walking around.

ICONS: What influential figures and mentors have helped you become the artist you are today?

MM: It’s a mix of things, but artistically speaking, I’d say Francis Bacon, Romeo Castellucci, and Lloyd Newson (DV8). Also, literature, photography and cinema. Virginia Woolf with her way to connect people and happenings of many things at the same time in what she described as ‘pensiamento fluido’ really inspired me. Photography impacts the way I do composition and generate a balance between the space and the bodies. Also, Marina Abramovich with her performances influenced me quite a lot.

ICONS: During fictitious travel back in time, what Marcos Morau of today advise the young Marcos Morau of the past?

MM: I would say keep trusting who you are and how you follow your convictions because the world will support you. Despite the darkness and the challenges, there is a beautiful place to trust where the arts are important. You can’t decide your destiny because it’s a mix of luck, work, and talent, and you don’t know how this triangle is playing around you, so keep following your instinct and intuition and enjoy that.

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MORE INFORMATION AND A BIOGRAPHY OF MARCOS MORAU:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcos_Morau

VIDEO SAMPLES OF MARCOS MORAU’S CHOREOGRAPHY:

 PASIONARIA, CHOREOGRAPHY MARCOS MORAU, PERFORMED BY LA VERONAL:

PHOTO CREDITS:

Photography © Albert Pons, Alex Fon, Simone Cargnoni, May Zircus

CREATIVE TEAM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Interviewer: Veronica Posth

Executive Content Editor: Camilla Acquista

Executive Assistant: Charles Scheland

Executive Director: Vladimir Angelov

Dance ICONS, Inc., April 2024 © All rights reserved.