The arts do not have “edges” for Marcos Morau (Ontinyent, 1982). The director of the La Veronal dance company, who is on his way to conquering the great European opera houses –this coming Tuesday he will announce that he will be an associate artist for four years in one of them–, premieres this weekend in Catalonia, in Within the framework of the Barcelona Festival D’A, the documentary on the creation process of his successful and award-winning Sonoma. The embryo of this jewel in which Morau addresses the world of Buñuel and surrealism and which ended up closing the Avignon Festival was created during the pandemic, so in the face of doubts and the fear that it would never see the light, he thought of leave at least documented the idea and its previous work.

“Sonoma was going to premiere at the Grec, but everything seemed so uncertain… I knew Albert Pons and the people from the production company Carmel, and I suggested they document the creative process and maybe make a film. If people consumed culture at home, we could survive and share what a company like La Veronal had been doing during the pandemic months”, says the choreographer about Sonoma (Le film, pas le spectacle).

Directed by Pons and Xavier Lozano, the film, which had its premiere at the Malaga Festival, is a production of the CaixaForum platform, where it will premiere after passing through the Un Impulso Colectivo section of D’A (today at the Teatre CCCB and tomorrow in Zumzeig, 7:30 p.m.). In it, reality and fiction coexist –inspired by the rehearsals themselves–, as well as cinema, theatre, dance…, and that gestural vocabulary of Sonoma, a piece in which nine dancers from different generations perform.

“It was conceived with the rage with which we left the house after the pandemic,” he points out. Added to this force in the documentary is the journey from chaos to the most absolute precision, ideas taking shape. For two months, the company lived surrounded by cameras that capture the scouting game.

“The public agrees to see the ins and outs of the process, and it is something cryptic that is not usually shared, because each process is different and each vital moment is different. And in this sense, I think it will gain value over the years because it will make us remember who we were at that time and how Sonoma was a before and after in the future of the company”.

Can this passage through the cinemas generate new audiences for dance? “Dance, you already know, is the poor sister of many arts. I don’t think it will save us, but when cinema looks at minority art, this is the one that has to win”.

Trained not as a dancer, but as a choreographer and playwright, Morau confesses that what he likes is the stage, the body, movement. In his works he uses the word, the image or whatever interests him at all times. That explains his inevitable entry into opera houses. First by the Royal Danish Ballet for a Carmen with orchestra. From there the Orpheus arose

“Other choreographers, Pina Bausch, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui…, have dared with operas. We are not strange to that language or the relationship with the score. In the end it is about how your creativity invades the performer, whether he is an actor, singer or dancer. I just turned 40, I want to open that melon”. With the Liceu, however, he assures that he cannot fit schedules, “but they will have to find the formula, otherwise the locomotive of Europe will be three years from now and there will be no dates left on my calendar.”

On the other hand, La Veronal is working on her first project for adolescents that will premiere at this Grec. “After such a digitized time, I want to see how I can bring them closer to the performing arts.” With this Firmament, he launches the idea that creativity is infinite and everything that can be imagined is possible. “It may be of interest to future artists,” she says. Oh, and in December she premiered at the Maestranza her first collaboration with the Spanish National Ballet that will be seen later at the Real.

“I would like to find peace, do less things and be calmer, but at the same time never lose the ability to surprise myself and discover that there are many Marcos within me and that I am capable of reinventing myself and transcending other languages, such as cinema. , the opera… or painting”, he concludes.