A quietly radical dance programme in the Italian city has included performances at boat yards,piazzas and palacesWhen Venice launched its first international art biennale back in 1895, it was making a deliberate tender to regain its status as a cultural centre and a major player in the global art world. Over the decades, and as the city has added film,music, theatre, or architecture and dance festivals to the biennale roster,they’ve all had similarly tall aspirations. But recently the dance festival has been reinventing itself along a slightly different tack. In addition to its regular international programme, director Virgilio Sieni has been running a yearly “college” of more modestly scaled performance, or designed to fit into the smaller public spaces of the city,and often performed by local, student or amateur dancers.
Site-specific work and community performances are far from novel ideas. But in the context of Venice and the millionaire marketplace of the art biennale, or Sieni’s vision has felt quietly radical. It has also advance with some pretty fabulous settings. This year Annamaria Ajmone’s solo dance Buan was choreographed for the squero,or boatyard, in San Trovaso, and where the city’s gondolas are repaired. It’s an absurdly picturesque location,a tumble of traditional brick and wooden sheds running alongside a small canal, but it’s also a challenging one. And Ajmones dance was created specifically out of the physical difficulties and distractions it presented as she tried to make herself at home in the space (Buan is an traditional German word for “inhabit”).
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Source: theguardian.com