FAST FORWARD

Serenade was the first work choreographer George Balanchine created in 1935 in his newly adopted home, the United States. Today it is considered a milestone of neoclassical ballet. Set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C major, this piece for 20 women and six men unfolds as a dance in the moonlight, full of rhythm, grace, and subtle romance. Serenade is essentially plotless, but infinitely suggestive and driven by Tchaikovsky's stirring music.

In Totentanz, Marcos Morau – one of the most visionary choreographers on the European dance scene today – transforms the medieval ritual of the “Danse Macabre” into a contemporary, sensually charged experience. Dance, music, and theatrical staging merge into a moving memento mori that contrasts the past and the present, transience and vitality. The result is a haunting and thought-provoking séance that celebrates the fragility of life and questions our relationship with death in a world full of upheaval.

In 1995, French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj created his moving pas de deux Annonciation for two women. In it, he sheds new light on the moment in which the Archangel Gabriel reveals to the Virgin Mary she will give birth to a saviour. Charged with tension, an intimate duet full of contradictions and emotions unfolds, in which Vivaldi's Magnificat contrasts with the electronic music of Stéphane Roy. The piece questions expectations, opens our eyes to the complexity of this legendary moment of conception, and leaves a deep, lasting impression.

The evening closes with The Moon in the Ocean, created by the choreographer Xie Xin for the Hamburg Ballet in February 2026. Based in Shanghai with her own company, the Chinese artist is known for her fluid, highly original dance language, whose motifs and rhythms develop a dreamlike pull and irresistibly captivate the audience. In The Moon in the Ocean she uses the relationship between the moon and the ocean as a metaphor for human life: which forces affect us and how do we react? What stories have we written upon and what part of us will remain in the ocean of life? Together with the dancers of the Hamburg Ballet, she has created a brand-new work for FAST FORWARD, continuing the unceasing flow of dance history