Biennale Danza 2025: Myth Makers

It takes the long view to imagine the future through the generative power of art: Myth Makers/Creatori di miti is the theme of the 19^th International Festival of Contemporary Dance that will run from July 17 to August 2 in Venice.

“Myths have played a crucial role throughout history,” writes Wayne McGregor, introducing the theme, “by providing a framework for understanding existence, morality, and the cosmos. They help us express our fears, aspirations, and the mysteries of life. As societies evolve, so do their myths. In times of turmoil or transition, when traditional beliefs and structures begin to break down, humanity often seeks new narratives to cope with uncertainty and inspire hope. These fresh myths can emerge from various sources: science, philosophy, collective experiences shared across communities, and most vitally, from the vivid realm of art”.
“Through their inexplicable creativity quest,” continues McGregor, “artists have always been the mythmakers of their day, and it is in their legacy that we delve into the depths of their/our inner selves while articulating universal truths that resonate across times and cultures”.

The sections of the 19^th International Festival of Contemporary Dance – live performances, art and technology, installations, Biennale College, workshops, and conversations – will present many new works: 8 world premieres, 7 European premieres, 5 Italian premieres. Over the course of 17 days, more than 160 artists will be involved in the 75 events open to the public.

In recent years, in particular, under the direction of Wayne McGregor, Biennale Danza has developed and consolidated a network that invests in the creativity of the future with its most innovative exponents through calls, residences, co-commissions, and coproductions. 361 proposals for new choreographies were presented through the two national and international calls launched last year; 393 applications arrived from over 40 countries throughout the world to participate in the 2025 Biennale College Dancers and Choreographers residence.

This year, the two winners of the international and the national call for new choreographies that will debut onstage at the Festival as world premieres are Bullyache, the duo composed of Courtney Garratt and Jacob Samuel, with A Good Man is Hard to Find; and the Nuovo Balletto di Toscana with Sisifo felice by the company’s new artistic director Philippe Kratz, who created the piece with the choreographer Pablo Girolami.

During the months of May, June, and July, the 16 dancers and 2 choreographers who will soon be selected for Biennale College’s intensive theoretical-practical programme – attending courses and workshops, and, above all, creating new works – will be concentrating on two focuses and the resulting projects will be presented during the course of the Festival.

The first focus is a unique, site-specific project, The Herds, which will be presented as a festival preview (June 17). The College dancers and choreographers will collaborate on The Herds, a large-scale public art and climate change initiative to raise the attention of the whole world. From April to August 2025, herds of life-size puppet animals will invade cities from Kinshasa to the outermost edge of Norway, a 20,000 km-long route symbolizing their flight from the climate catastrophe that has destroyed their habitat. Biennale College Danza will encounter The Herds in Venice, and, for the occasion, the hip-hop star Anthony Matsena will create a bespoke choreographic intervention.

The second focus centers on Sasha Waltz, the creator of a highly personal choreographic imaginary; through her dance, she illuminates the structure of the music, presenting it under a new light. The young artists of the College will work with Sasha Waltz and her team at the studio and on an adaptation of In C by Terry Riley.

Plus, this experience of the selected young artists will interweave with and be fostered by the staging of the two original Biennale College choreography projects that won and will be performed by the dancers themselves.

This year, too, Biennale Danza co-commissions, coproduces, and presents new works by the choreographers who received a Silver Lion during the previous editions of the Festival. For 2025, Tao Ye and Duan Ni will present the European premieres of 16 and 17, two new works of pure dance that continue the Numerical Series, their expressive cipher, as well as a seal.

Several of the top-tier names in international choreography will be in Venice with new creations in co-commission or coproduction with La Biennale and other important institutions and festivals.
Marcos Morau and the multidisciplinary collective he founded twenty years ago, La Veronal, will present the world premiere of La Mort i la Primavera, inspired by the universal myth of death and rebirth, and by the posthumous work by Mercè Rodoreda.
Tânia Carvalho, one of the new, internationally affirmed exponents of Portuguese dance, will present a world premiere solo, Ventre do Vulcão at Biennale Danza. A work that fuses classical precision with expressive, chaotic movement, mirroring life’s unpredictability.
Following its debut in Madrid, Biennale Danza presents the Italian premiere of Simulacro by the collective Kor’sia, founded in Madrid by the dancers and choreographers Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo – both of whom graduated from the Teatro La Scala in Milan. Through a combination of artistic languages and advanced technology, the performance, which studies the human identity in the digital era, offers an immersive and interdisciplinary experience that amplifies the interaction between reality and the virtual.
Another Italian premiere will be Friends of Forsythe, featuring William Forsythe in collaboration with Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit, Lex Ishimoto, Riley Watts, Brigel Gjoka, and the JA Collective (Aidan Carberry & Jordan Johnson). Friends of Forsythe celebrates the diversity of the cultures of dance and the transformative power of this discipline that can unite people on a profound level.

The Festival will also present cross-cultural events, some of historical ancestry, with unusual characteristics, all Italian premieres.
A journey into Sufi spirituality, in the rhythmic and dense flow of Islamic verses, conveyed by the highly sophisticated form of kathak tradition of the Aakash Odedra Company and its Songs of the bulbul. Aakash Odedra was trained in the kathak and Bharatanatyam styles of classical Indian dance. He is directed by the choreographer Rani Khanam, who has impressed kathak with her own highly personal style permeated with the wisdom of the Sufi texts, and accompanied by the music of Rushil Ranjan, who reformulates the impetuosity of Sufi music through rich orchestral scores.
Yoann Bourgeois, a choreographer and artist who has turned the art of falling into a choreographic element by blending dance and acrobatics, presents his new work, created with the Canadian singer-songwriter Patrick Watson. The aerial beauty of the movements and the play of light is accompanied by the delicacy and nuances of Canadian popular music.
Virginie Brunelle, violinist and choreographer, presents Fables, three tableaux embodied by ten dancers from her company and accompanied by the pianist Laurier Rajotte. Inspired by Monte Verità, which, in the early 1900s, became the cradle of a famous community of artists, utopians, revolutionaries, and theosophists, Fables puts the spotlight on the prodromes of that extraordinary experience of women’s freedom.

The Festival will once again be the stage of highly experimental experiences involving dance, art, and technology.
On the Other Earth, which debuts as a world premiere and will be on view for the entire duration of the Festival, is a coproduction between La Biennale di Venezia, Studio Wayne McGregor, Hong Kong Ballet, and Future Cinema Systems, and will see Wayne McGregor himself alongside the artist Jeffrey Shaw, the filmmaker Ravi Deepres, and the light artist Theresa Baumgartner. Dance, choreography, digital images, a multimodal survey, artificial intelligence, and spatial audio converge in this immersive and interactive installation that envelops the audience in a new nVis installation, the first movie screen in the world that uses 360-degree sensory technology. An unexpected and unique way to experience dance.
ChunkyMove, the Australian company directed by Antony Hamilton, has also propagated the magic of algorithms through performances that are a perfect alchemy of performance, visual art, electronic sound, and installation. In Venice, they will present the European premiere of U>N>I>T>E>D, 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. A universe that is both sci-fi and ancient.

The legendary American choreographer and dancer Twyla Tharp will receive the Festival’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and will inaugurate the Festival (July 17) with the magnetic energy of her choreographies: Slacktide, a new creation, will be presented together with her famous choreography from 1998, Diabelli. A diptych that celebrates sixty years of activity with her company, Twyla Tharp Dance, on its Diamond Jubilee Tour. The tour started on January 26 in Minneapolis and is crossing the United States from coast to coast, before coming to the Biennale for its European premiere.

A key exponent of the South American experimental scene, Carolina Bianchi, the recipient of the Silver Lion, reflects the most extreme experiences of female performance art with strong political and social implications. A current that runs from Gina Pane to Marina Abramovic, Regina José Galindo, Tania Bruguera, and Ana Mendieta, and for which Bianchi opens new frontiers. At the Festival, Carolina Bianchi will present the Italian premiere of the second chapter in the trilogy, Cadela Força: The Brotherhood, a work that centers on masculinity and the male gaze.

Like every year, the Festival will hold laboratories for specialists that are also open to the public, featuring many of the guest companies and choreographers. Encounters and conversations that will bring the public closer to the programmed performances.
Lastly, an exhibit and a book will document the activities and protagonists of Biennale Dance, captured by Indigo Lewis during his four years of residency at the Festival; intimate and unexpected pictures that form an extraordinary photographic archive.

Our thanks to the Italian Ministry of Culture for its important contribution and to the Veneto Region for its support of the programmes in the Dance Music Theatre departments of La Biennale di Venezia.

Special thanks to Rolex, which already supports the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and is now becoming Main Sponsor of Biennale Danza. Through its Perpetual Arts Initiative, an expanding portfolio of arts that extends across architecture, cinema, dance, literature, music, theatre and visual arts, the brand champions artistic excellence and achievement and confirms its long-term commitment to global culture.

Media partner of the Dance Music Theatre departments is once again Rai. Through its information channels and Rai cultura - in particular the TV channel Rai 5 and Radio3 – the various activities taking place in Venice will be described and offered to the public.

We thank the following for their collaboration: Comune di Venezia, Fondazione Forte Marghera, Fondazione Teatro La Fenice, Teatro Stabile del Veneto “Carlo Goldoni”, Polo Museale Veneziano - Ministero della Cultura, la Marina Militare e Difesa Servizi, Fondazione Forte Marghera,  APS Live artscultures ETS.

Our consolidated collaboration continues with Vela – Venezia Unica, a commercial company of the City of Venice specialized in mobility and marketing, with an agreement of reciprocal promotion and visibility.