Emanuel Gat trained in music before he turned to dance, and it shows in the freedom with which he treats iconic scores —The Rite of Spring, The Well-Tempered Clavier, and now Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, of voluminous and ethereal Adagietto fame. Born and raised in Israel but based in Marseille for the last two decades, Gat choreographs parallel universes that by accident and design approach and depart from the familiar music. For the Mahler, the dozen dancers seem to be on the beach or on the sun in a slide between the mundane and otherworldly. Responsible for their own moves, these postmodern dancers are typically unemphatic. But as if by an unforeseen wind, they do intermittently amass and rush across the stage like dark rolling clouds in an echo of Mahler’s intrusions of grief and hope. Five Days in the Sun premiered in June 2026 at the Montpellier festival to unanimous critical acclaim and tours Europe until next June. —Apollinaire Scherr