Marcos Morau’s beguiling spectacles may be ubiquitous across Western Europe, but it is still Switzerland’s moment to gloat. Before the Ballett Zürich gives the ecstatically received Nachtträume (Nightmares) a third run since 2022, the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève will premiere its own Morau. Neither originality nor faddishness accounts for the high demand. The Spanish director-choreographer brings to mind any number of old auteurs. He’s a messier, more restless Robert Wilson; late Fellini without the camp or the glory; Almodovar minus the pervasive eroticism; Buñuel at his most scathing and Dadaist. Indeed, Morau’s method is to borrow, then displace. Like the original Surrealists, he sutures together resemblances for a dense dream matrix of allusion and elusion. The performers—sometimes jarringly synchronized, intermittently jabbering marionettes; sometimes gluey organisms—are never personable enough to pull us from blurry déjà vu back to reality. For the Geneva commission, Morau continues his preoccupation with ritual—“these ornaments that bodies know from previous generations”— by channeling an imaginary Bulgaria, “beneath a starry sky, on any night of any year in history.” —Apollinaire Scherr

Ballett Zürich’s Nachtträume runs from June 20 until July 4, 2026. Tickets and information here