Pioneering, adventurous, radical, iconoclastic, determined professionals, women artists conquered and illustrated Venice. Since the early twentieth century female choreographers and dancer-authors, challenging themselves relentlessly on a par with men, colleagues, friends and rivals, have thrown themselves into the fray of the art of the body, defying tradition and conventions. Creation is an essential priority, without fear of the judgement of audiences and critics, male and female. Classical and modern European dance are represented in Venice and at La Biennale first and foremost in the programmes of the International Festival of Contemporary Music, with world-class artists; after World War II, the work of epoch-making choreographers would come from the United States and the entire world to Venice. The new Germany arrived with a portfolio of Stücke by Pina Bausch and her Wuppertal Tanztheater in 1985 at the International Theatre Festival. After the Dance department was established in 1999 with Carolyn Carlson, an incisive succession of programmes was developed punctuated with works created by women, with two choreographers from the New World, Karole Armitage and Marie Chouinard, directing innovative international festivals, and a lengthy series of Golden and Silver Lions awarded to female artists of esteemed value in a kaleidoscopic variety of styles and poetics.
