Now in its eighth edition, the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, will take place this year from June 8 through 24. Two weeks of productions, performances and installations – including 5 world premieres and 5 Italian premieres – as well as lectures, laboratories and master classes with some of the leading figures on the contemporary scene. And also: 20 short performances by 20 companies selected by means of a public call for entries, presented in the Marathon of the Unexpected, a space within the Festival dedicated to innovative works never before performed in public. The Festival, directed by Ismael Ivo and titled Awakenings to celebrate and foster the awakening of life and creativity – “Movement is life. The heart provides the rhythm and the body moves a step. These are the dynamics of survival and existence”, writes Ivo – will take place around the city: from the fascinating spaces of the Arsenale – Artiglierie, Corderie, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Teatro alle Tese – to the Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian, headquarters of the Biennale, the Teatro Malibran and unusual spaces such as the Salone SS. Filippo e Giacomo in the Diocesan Museum of Venice. Two new works will open the Festival on June 8th: the new production by Virgilio Sieni, conceived specifically for the festival, De Anima, which continues the very particular exploration by this Tuscan choreographer into the realms of literature, philosophy and poetry, on stage at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, and the new choreographic work by director Ismael Ivo, Biblioteca del corpo, which will involve, at the conclusion of their year-long study session, the 25 dancers of the Arsenale della Danza. The educational work and experimentation represented by the Arsenale della Danza converges in this piece with the festival and exhibition experience, which is intent on spotlighting a significant cross-section of the contemporary dance scene. Ideally inspired by a short-story by Borges, The Library of Babel, the production builds a personal “library of the body”, a choreographic installation in which the bodies are collected like a book. “The starting point was the notion that each individual in and of himself represents a book that contains unique and original information. This secret information is inimitable. But the individual book must be open in order to reveal its different aspects, its defects, its qualities and its potential. In this process, every single book, while it is original, is simply one volume in the great human encyclopaedia” (I. Ivo). To be performed on 9 and 10 June, the production will then go on tour in Italy and abroad. The Festival continues with a tribute to an artist who has not been forgotten, Pina Bausch, composed by Cristiana Morganti, a historic dancer in the Tanztheater Wuppertal: Moving with Pina will be presented in the Sala delle Colonne in Cà Giustinian on 12 and 13 June. The diptych by the Balé Teatro Castro Alves from Salvador de Bahia opens a perspective on the country of Brazil, where the art of dance runs through the expressions of everyday life: 1Por1Praum by Jorge Vermelho and A quem possa interessar by Henrique Rodovalho, presented at the Biennale in their Italian premiere performance, will be shown respectively at the Corderie dell’Arsenale (13>17 June) and at the Teatro alle Tese (15>17 June). From Brazil another form of “cultural crossbreeding” with the Anglo-Indian choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh, a pioneer of “global” or “fusion” dance, which creates a short-circuit between tradition and innovation, between east and west. TooMortal is the title of Shobana’s new creation, presented in its world premiere performance in Venice and commissioned by the Biennale with London’s Dance Umbrella Festival and Dansen Hus of Stockholm (14>16 June, St. George's Anglican Church, Venice). Returning to Venice will be William Forsythe, an artist in constant evolution who never ceases to explore the processes of dance, in one of his now famous “choreographic objects”, shown in galleries and museums around the world: Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time, an Italian premiere at the Biennale in the spaces of the Artiglierie in the Arsenale (15>17, 22>24 June). Featured at the Biennale for the first time, Erna Òmarsdòttir from Iceland, long a dancer for Jan Fabre, with the new version of We Saw Monsters at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale (15 and 16 June) and Koffi KôKô from Benin, a pioneering performer of modern African dance in Europe, with La Beauté du Diable at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale (19 and 20 June). The relationship between the Masters and the students also led to the proposal of a historical production: Line Up grew out of the encounter between the Teatro Scuola “Paolo Grassi” in Milan and American choreographer Trisha Brown and her company (at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, 21 and 22 June). The finale of the eighth edition of the Festival of the Biennale lines up two exceptional personalities. A true star of dance, Sylvie Guillem, perhaps the only artist who has been successful in combining her planetary popularity with the exceptional level of her productions, is now back from a lengthy tour that began at Sadler’s Welles in London with her latest work: 6000 Miles Away,a choreographic triptych by some of the finest names in contemporary dance, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Jirì Kyliàn (at the Teatro Malibran June 22). Finally the world premiere of the new production by the now-cult artist Wim Vandekeybus: his booty Looting will be on stage on 23 and 24 June at the Tese dell’Arsenale. The Marathon of the Unexpected (24 June, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale) is the Biennale’s open space within the Festival dedicated to new works: all brand new pieces and striking in their brevity – no more than 15 minutes each – selected by means of a competition to reveal that which rarely becomes visible. The Awakenings Dance Party (24 June, Tese delle Vergini) will be a moment of shared festivity, to celebrate the joy and beauty of dance as the crowning moment of the Festival. The program of the Dance Biennale also includes workshop experiences, meetings and lectures that emphasize the need to make Venice not only a privileged venue for the presentation of works that have never been performed in Italy, but also a meeting place between Italian and foreign artists, and between the artists and a well-informed audience that is interested in the experimentation of diverse expressive languages. Along with Choreographic Collision, the sixth edition of an advanced training course in choreography directed by Ismael Ivo and organized by the Associazione DanzaVenezia, there will be master classes for professionals and non-professionals with the protagonists of the Festival, a unique opportunity to come into direct contact with the creative tools and processes of today’s masters: Virgilio Sieni, Cristiana Morganti of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, Rosa Barreto and Gilberto Baía of the Balé Teatro Castro Alves, Erna Ómarsdóttir, Wim Vandekeybus, Brock Labrenz of the Forsythe Company andKoffi Kôkô. Once again this year, the Regione del Veneto will offer its support to the live performing arts programme, recognizing the capacity of this part of the Biennale’s activity, and of dance in particular, to foster a long-term process of artistic creation that is conceived in Venice but looks to the world. The collaboration with the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice, well-established over the course of several years, finds further ground in the programmes of the Dance Festival.