We Humans, the 18th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, which is part of the larger Venice Biennale, starts today (July 18) and runs through August 3. This year’s festival is directed by the brilliant Sir Wayne McGregor CBE, resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet and artistic director of Studio Wayne McGregor. He was appointed director of the Dance Department of La Biennale di Venezia in 2020, and while his term was supposed to end after this year, his curation has been so exceptional that it was recently announced he will remain in the position for a further two years.
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In McGregor’s festival introduction, he writes that this year’s Biennale Danza will explore “the very nature of what it is to be human. An eternal quest that has occupied priests and poets, philosophers and politicians, scientists and artists” for millennia. This year’s featured choreographers and companies are preoccupied with “unwrapping the great complexity, contradictions and mystery that is human life.” And more than once he reminds us that “we Humans are movement.”
We Humans includes seven world premieres, two European premieres and eleven Italian premieres from both emerging and established dance makers. Over the course of the dance festival’s seventeen days, 160 artists will take part in 80 events. McGregor’s is a feat of creative execution both amazing and overwhelming, so we have put together a guide to the Biennale Danza shows that shouldn’t be missed.
Each year, the director of the Dance Department recommends artists to the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia for two prestigious awards: the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and the Silver Lion (dedicated to cutting-edge dance makers and........