More than 160 artists meet in Venice during 17 July - 2 August to participate to the 75 events of the 19th International Festival of Contemporary Dance and co-create on this year's theme: Myth Makers. New works showcase cross-artistic collaborations exploring our contemporary myths on women's freedom, technology, spirituality and climate action, in 8 world, 7 European and 5 Italian premieres.
By Eirini PolydorouThe 75 events in the 19th Biennale Danza programme include live performances, art and technology, installations, workshops, and conversations. This year's festival features 8 world premieres, 7 European premieres, and 5 Italian premieres, where artists re-interpret the myths of the world.
The "Myth Makers/Creatori di miti" theme for 2025 Biennale Danza aims at imagining the future through the generative power of art.
New works and cross-artistic collaborations of gender, technological, historical, traditional or environmental references will be presented in the Festival. One such is the work Fables by Virginie Brunelle, violinist and choreographer. Her Fables are three tableaux embodied by ten dancers and accompanied by the pianist Laurier Rajotte. The project puts in the spotlight the prodromes of women's freedom and is "inspired by Monte Verità, which, in the early 1900s, became the cradle of a famous community of artists, utopians, revolutionaries, and theosophists" (following image).
The Festival will present the European premiere of the new work U>N>I>T>E>D, by he Australian dance company ChunkyMove, directed by Antony Hamilton. The project balances betwen a sci-fi and an ancient universe, combining performance, visual art, electronic sound, and installation. "It is set in a post-industrial digital era, with six extraordinary dancers-cyborgs, armed with robotic exoskeletons – an “artificial musculature” that increases strength, agility, and speed, thanks to the articulated costume and set elements by Australian global leaders in animatronic design, Creature Technology Co." (following image).
New cross-cultural creations include as well the work Songs of the bulbul by the Aakash Odedra Company. It is a project where the highly sophisticated dance forms of Aakash Odedra Company on kathak and Bharatanatyam styles of classical Indian dance traditions meet with the wisdom and spirituality of Sufi texts, under Rani Khanam's direction, musically enriched with orchestral scores by Rushil Ranjan (following image).
Biennale Danza 2025 has co-produced and will present two new creations by Tao Ye and Duan Ni, the choreographers awarded with a Silver Lion in the previous editions of the Festival, in coninuation to their Numerical Series (image at the top of the article).
Two of the premiers of this year include new works by the two winners of the international and national call for new choreographies of the Festival. Bullyache, the duo of Courtney Garratt and Jacob Samuel, will debut their work A Good Man is Hard to Find; and the Nuovo Balletto di Toscana will debut Sisifo felice, created by the company’s new artistic director Philippe Kratz and the choreographer Pablo Girolami.
New works to be premiered include also the resulting projects of this year's courses and workshops of Biennale College’s, organized during May, June, and July 2025.
The first project is The Herds, a unique, site-specific work of the College in collaboration with The Herds, a world-scale initiative combining public art with climate change action.
The Herds are the life-size puppet animals, invading cities from Kinshasa to Norway from April to August 2025, to symbolize the destruction of their habitats due to climate catastrophe. Their 20,000 km-long "flight" included a stop in Venice in June to meet with the Biennale College Danza artists and with the hip-hop star Anthony Matsena, who will create a choreography for the occasion.
The second project is a collaboration of the College with Sasha Waltz, presenting an adaptation of In C by Terry Riley.
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All images are courtesy of Biennale Danza 2025 for Creativesunite.eu.
