Wayne McGregor, on his second year as Artistic Director, has chosen the title Boundary-less for the 16th International Festival of Contemporary Dance (Venice, 22 > 31 July).
“What is it for an artist/an artwork to be boundary-less today?” – McGregor asks himself. “Is it expressed in the people we choose to collaborate with, the mediums we innovate inside, from where we work, or in the attempts to erode the categories that define us or something other? Isn’t art making, the very act of breaking boundaries, borders and barriers? Isn’t it a way of re-imagination and a new way of thinking? Art, then perhaps the liminal space of the in-between”.
The artists invited this year include Saburo Teshigawara, who re-imagines the seminal work Petroushka for a world premiere; Rocío Molina will bring on stage Carnación, an astonishing explosion of physical and creative energy; Diego Tortelli features the sonic and visceral experiment titled Fo:No; seven top-tier auteur/choreographers share one programme of trailblazing dance, Gauthier Dance’s The Seven Sins; Marrugeku makes intercultural indigenous dance theatre from northwestern Australia and presents Straight Talk; HUMANHOOD fuses modern physics and Eastern mysticism in ∞ {Infinite}; choreographer Trajal Harrell offers the dazzling and provocative work of high art and pop culture, Maggie the Cat; finally, A.I.M by Kyle Abrahamchanges Mozart’s Requiem drawing from classical ballet, hip-hop, modern dance, and street dance.
Three installations, that can be seen every day for the entire duration of the Festival, complete the programme: Tobias Gremmler, Fields (scenographic media installation); Indigo Lewin, Artist in Residence 21 – Exhibition(photo exhibition); and Blanca Li, Le bal de Paris (immersive live performance enhanced by virtual reality).
Furthermore, a day of films, Dance Film Screenings, scheduled on 25 July (10 am – 10 pm, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale); talks with the artists, and a cycle of workshops (24 > 30 July) held by the choreographers and protagonists of the Festival
THE 2022 LION AWARDS FOR DANCE
Awards ceremony: Saturday 23 July at 12 noon, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale.
GOLDEN LION FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: Saburo Teshigawara
“Brave, singular, humane and thrilling, Saburo Teshigawara has inspired, challenged and agitated many generations of dance makers. Teshigawara’s keenly engineered sculptural sensibilities, powerful sense of choreographic form and his individualistic dance language blend to create a unique world that is his alone. His practice spans a broad and ever-increasing gamut of disciplines from live theatrical performance to visual arts, films/videos as well as designing scenography, lighting, and costumes for all his performances”. (Wayne McGregor)
Saburo Teshigawara will present in Venice two world premieres: Petroushka (22 July at 8 pm, Teatro Malibran); and Biennale College Dancers – Swing (24 July at 6 pm, Teatro alle Tese).
SILVER LION: Rocío Molina
“Molina’s avant-garde, extravagant and powerfully raw choreographies fuse traditional flamenco with modern dance styles and impulsos – improvisations that characterise her unique dance language. Indeed, Molina has coined her own artistic language based on a recalibrated traditional flamenco style which respects its essence but embraces the genuinely new. Radically free, Molina combines in her works: technical virtuosity, contemporary research, and conceptual risk”. (Wayne McGregor)
Rocío Molina will present in Venice the world premiere of Carnación (27 July at 8 pm, Teatro alle Tese)
Biennale College Dancers will present in the programme the world premiere of Swing, a site-specific performance choreographed by the Golden Lion recipient, Saburo Teshigawara (24 July at 6 pm, Teatro alle Tese).
Biennale College Choreographers will present the world premieres of the new productions by Matteo Carvone, The Garden, and by Edit Domoszlai, Liminal, who have worked with the young dancers of the College (28 July at 6 pm, Tese dei Soppalchi and 29 July at 8 pm, Tese dei Soppalchi).
A further world premiere will be presented by the Biennale College Danza and their performance Event, a new production of the historic Merce Cunningham choreography in Venice (1972). Atomising the original Cunningham Event and creating a processional site-specific performance of Cunningham’s work, on and beside the canal, repertory from the iconic St Marks work will be taught, rehearsed and re-distributed by Jeannie Steele and Daniel Squire – two seminal dancers of the Merce Cunningham Company and performed by 16 dancers of the Biennale College. The Cunningham ‘atoms’ will be danced on floating stages and journey through key locations to ‘sail’ into the Arsenale where an outdoor 45-minute danced Cunningham Event will emerge (31 July, 5 pm – 7 pm, outdoor spaces of the Giardini and Arsenale).
Starting this year, Biennale College is part of the project to develop and reinforce the activities of La Biennale di Venezia, with the purpose of creating a permanent centre of national and international excellence. As such, the Biennale College comes under the “Strategic Investment Plan for Cultural Heritage Sites, Buildings and Natural Areas” in the National Plan for Investments Complementary to the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience
