A body that cannot die confronts a paradox in dance: it must move to demonstrate its power, yet seems removed from time. In Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, this tension becomes a tale of desire, dependence and danger. Two current ballets place different emphases on it: Krzysztof Pastor’s ‘Dracula’ has already been staged in Dortmund; Edward Clug’s ‘CARPATHIA – Der Mythos der Untoten’ (CARPATHIA – The Myth of the Undead) receives its world premiere in Munich in late November.
Two Paths Through the Night
Pastor’s narrative ballet, premiered by West Australian Ballet in 2018, was performed in Germany for the first time by Ballett Dortmund and the NRW Juniorballett on 17 October 2026. The choreography portrays Dracula as a man who remains trapped between life and death after the death of his great love, and sees in Mina the hope of release. Two dancers embody the title character’s different manifestations. Intimate pas de deux sit alongside large ensemble scenes; the neoclassical, theatrical movement vocabulary carries the narrative forward. Wojciech Kilar’s music provides its foundation.
Clug, choreographer and ballet director at the Slovenian National Theatre in Maribor, takes a different approach in Munich. ‘CARPATHIA’ is his first work for the Bavarian State Ballet and is set to a specially commissioned score by Milko Lazar. The Transylvanian-born choreographer takes Stoker’s novel, published in 1897, as his starting point but, according to the Bavarian State Opera, turns away from familiar commercial images of vampires. His stated path leads into the Carpathians, towards archaic rituals and a cyclical sense of time.
When the Body Carries the Story
For now, these are two different dramaturgical propositions, not yet statements about their effect on stage. In Pastor’s work, the character becomes legible through a life story: love, loss and the hope of redemption. Dividing Dracula between two dancers makes his inner conflict visible. Here, the body can be both a seducer and an aged being marked by fate.
Clug’s conception shifts the emphasis. Immortality is intended to appear not as triumph or seduction, but as a burden; a disturbed balance between people and their world lies at its heart. According to the announcement, the movement unfolds in a sequence of ritual states. Only the premiere will reveal the specific gestures, formations and physical relationships that emerge from this.
The Undead in the Present
For ballet, the vampire offers more than material for a costume drama: his power can be negotiated through proximity and distance, through a grip, resistance or a movement taken over from another. Who leads, who follows, who can break free? Dance makes such questions physically legible without words. Pastor’s duets and ensemble tableaux tell a romantic tragedy; Clug turns his gaze towards origins, ritual and the loss of order.
The locations, too, lend their own emphasis. Dortmund presented Pastor’s ‘Dracula’ at the Opernhaus with its original designs. Clug’s new creation returns to Munich: Stoker’s novel begins with a journey that starts in the city. The curtain rises on the world premiere at the Nationaltheater on 25 November 2026; further performances in the first run are announced for 28 November and 4 December. The comparison promises no ranking. It reveals how an old myth can be read anew in ballet, in one case as a love story and in the other as a question about the relationship between body, time and world.
Original reviewed by the editors · 30 October 2026
