Manners Faber composer Nils Frahm 2013 track Familiar appeared alongside music by Ólafur Arnalds, Jon Hopkins & Kenny Anderson, and Dustin Hamman in Alejandro Cerrudo’s Silent Ghost at Charlotte Ballet in March 2026. The 21-minute abstract ballet is a tender mood piece, which sees heads and hands collide, connect and break apart, with figures disappearing into and reappearing from the shadowy backdrop; its choreography is fluid, flexible, and constantly unfolding, with dancers in intimate physical proximity. The ballet premiered in 2015 with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and was revived by Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2018 and 2021.
Familiar is a 6-minute track from Frahm’s album Spaces – a patchwork of live recordings reworked and refashioned by Frahm. The track is for solo piano, its opening minutes seeing Frahm tread out an undulating figure redolent of Glass and Nyman; a more reflective, chordal section follows, growing in rhetorical power and resonance before a more withdrawn conclusion.
Music from Spaces has been a frequent inspiration for choreographers. Tracks from the album appeared at Theater Ulm in spring 2026 in Annett Göhre’s Für immer; Frahm’s 16-minute Toilet Brushes – More also featured as part of Kafka at the Janáček Theatre, Brno, in the 2025-26 season – a full-length work exploring the life of the Czech author, choreographed by Markéta Pimek Habalová. It has also appeared at the Royal Ballet as part of Joshua Junker’s critically-acclaimed Never Known, part of their Festival of New Choreography. In 2023 it was used for Ingrid Silva’s dance film Above, which saw the Brazilian dancer move around the HVAC utilities humming 800 feet above New York City atop Renzo Piano’s New York Times Building, wearing a custom paper sculpture by French artist Pauline Loctin; Above was directed by Jacob Krupnick with cinematography by Soren Nielsen.
This summer Frahm’s music also featured in August in an innovative new choreographic treatment at the Edinburgh Fringe – Aufguss x Nils Frahm sees his music used as part of the world’s first ‘sauna theatre’, created by the Sauna Sessions Arts Club, and acclaimed as the "hottest ticket in town" by The Times. The 90-minute show, devised by James Grieve, puts the Aufguss sauna ritual at its centre – a towel-waving dance that circulates steam and scent through the sauna. This movement is heighted by lighting and surround sound, with Frahm’s aching piano writing, ecstatic electronica, and house beats heightening the atmosphere as the heat and steam rise as the sessions unfold. Aufguss x Nils Frahm runs until 31 August.