Nacho Duato composed the one-act ballet, White Darkness, as a requiem for the untimely loss of a sister. The result is a masterpiece which, according to critics, has “reached impossible heights” in the landscape of modern art.
The ballet’s heroine, having lost faith in love, seeks oblivion; but the path she has chosen brings her not joy but feverish agitation, followed by disappointment, alienation and self-imposed isolation.
Nacho Duato does not consider dance to be a form of social commentary, but he nevertheless uses it to convey the most complex of themes. “I am deeply struck by how sad it is when young people allow drugs to ruin their lives and slip into a dark world, a world so dark, in fact, that there is no escape from it,” the choreographer explains, on the subject of the emotional background to this production.