Pietrangelo Buttafuoco

The voice of poets

Wayne McGregor, Caterina Barbieri, and Willem Dafoe are three great artists from different generations, origins, and experiences. But they are also three refined thinkers, able to convey their vision and put it at the service of cultural institutions, interpreting with intuition and originality the artistic scene to which they themselves belong. And they do this with the same eyes, heart, and brain they use to create choreographies, musical scores, and dramaturgies.

When Wayne McGregor first told me about his idea of structuring his upcoming Biennale Danza on the topic of artists as the creators of myths, this was yet another confirmation that our objectives and visions are on the same wavelength.

Myth explains and gives origin to the world through the voice of poets. As a universal element, Myth is psyche and action in their essential form, the conflict between Apollonian and Dionysian, and thus pure humanity. And it dovetails with dance as it does with every ancestral propitiatory rite, at the dawning of every art form. To say that artists are creators of myths, therefore, is not only philologically correct; it is the necessary predisposition for divining the future.

“Through movement, the artists of La Biennale have created transformative myths,” says Sir Wayne McGregor in the complex and surprising programme Myth Makers - Creatori di Miti. In order to survive sudden and lacerating changes, we must identify with forms that, although disguised by the spirit of the time, appear before our eyes as immutable reference points. Hence, the Director of Biennale Danza investigates the fascinating process of permanence in change, which is the strength and the power of Myth.

Right from its origin, La Biennale di Venezia has been distinguished by the strong vocation for contemporaneity and the international open-mindedness that have molded its identity over time. Starting from these founding elements, the Artistic Directors of the upcoming editions of the Dance, Music, and Theatre Biennales have delineated programmes that are able to go further and broaden the horizons: from the international to the universal, from the contemporary to a projection into the future.

Their projects, rich in conceptual stratifications and innovative ideas, clearly express the desire to expand categories and redefine paradigms, transforming the artistic gesture into an experience of intellectual exploration. Hence, they are an invitation to measure oneself against the complexity of the present time through the exercise – and the arduous challenge – of critical thought.

Thus, the Dance, Music, and Theatre programmes are illuminations that have descended directly from Parnassus, an appointment with Terpsichore, Euterpe, and Melpomene in Venice over the next two years.