11:30 am, Corderie
PUPPIES PUPPIES (JADE GUANARO KURIKI-OLIVO)
My heart is beating as I lip sync to this song (10’)
This performance features Puppies Puppies’ work Electric Dress (Atsuko Tanaka) (2023) – a wearable neon sculpture honouring those lost in the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a queer nightclub in Orlando, Florida. A performer dances and twirls around the space while donning the Electric Dress, lip-syncing to two pop songs whose catchy tunes are likely to move visitors to sing along, creating a collective moment of remembrance through celebration.
Performer: Martina Rota
12:30 pm, Corderie
ANTONIO GUZMAN & IVA JANKOVIC
Messengers of the Sun - Dub Waves & Interferences (20’)
Messengers of the Sun intertwines processional parades, experimental sounds, and dance, in an Afrofuturist performance leading to the duo of artists Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic’s indigo-blue textile installation at the Arsenale. The live music performance merges diasporic beats with dub, punk, electro, poetry, and ritualistic chanting, reflecting on the fabrics’ ties to migration, race, and cultural hybrid identities. Its title nods to Sun Ra’s myth, where lost children symbolise ancestral migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Sirius-B galaxy.
Performers: Antonio Jose Guzman & Puppets Family Dance Academy, Treviso (Junior Fall, Aicha Dieme, Alexia Nicola)
Music: Transillumination #1 / EDS Bass Mash Up Vol. 5 by Guzman & Jankovic
3:00 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)
4:30 pm, Sale d’Armi E
AHMED UMAR
Talitin (The Third) (40’)
Ahmed Umar’s performance is a radical reclamation of the Sudanese Bridal Dance. A rite of passage performed during the Sudanese traditional wedding ceremony. The dance is usually personalised to each bride, with a unique set of songs and choreography. Claiming his place in this tradition, Umar’s performance is the first of its kind to present this dance on a male queer body while preserving its traditional elements. Trained by Sudanese singer Alsarah, who was trained by a lineage of women before her, she takes on the role of “alwazira” in presenting the bride to the audience.