As part of the production “Mono no aware | 物の哀れ”, dance director Thorsten Teubl conducts an interview with Maura Morales.
Here is an extract:
Teubl: Many people experience our present as uncertain, fragile and overwhelming. Is ‘Mono no aware’ also a response to our times for you?
Morales: Our present is not fragile in the same way that a cherry blossom is fragile. The cherry blossom falls because that is its nature. We, on the other hand, experience uncertainty because systems are failing, because trust is eroding and because the future has become indecipherable. This is not a natural cycle, but something that humans have created — and that humans could also change.
Mono no aware is not a political aesthetic. It accepts transience; it does not fight against it. The question is therefore: is this form of acceptance still sufficient in our times?
Our present suffers not only from uncertainty, but also from a lack of attention. Everything is immediately replaced, overshadowed, forgotten. The new appears before the old has even had a chance to truly take hold.
Mono no aware, by contrast, teaches us something radical: to look. To really look. Long enough to sense that something is passing. In an age of constant acceleration, this is almost an act of resistance — not because it changes the world immediately, but because it gives people back something that is being taken from them: the present moment as a place in which to dwell.
When the audience sits for an hour observing bodies in motion — in their strength and in their transience — this is not an escape from the present. It is an invitation back into it.
Look. Now. This moment exists.
This is perhaps the most political thing theatre can do today — without uttering a single political word.
