Venice Dance Biennale: There Was Still Time; Folklore Dynamics review – full of ideas and intent

One of Wayne McGregor’s innovations as artistic director of the Venice Dance Biennale – a position he will continue to hold for the next two years – was to introduce an open call for work by Italian choreographers. The commission aims to support dance-makers in the tricky mid-period of their careers, when they are neither rising stars nor established talents, giving them opportunity to develop, to run risks, to grow.

Both this year’s commissions were shown on a single day, and both felt full of ideas and intent. There Was Still Time , by Maria Chiara de’ Nobili and Alexander Miller, who work together as Miller de Nobili , is explicitly inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot . Yet while its two dancers, Nam Tran Xuan and Alessandro Ottaviani, one a specialist in hip-hop, the other in breaking, quote from the play and refer to its scenes, their absurdist hour upon the stage takes different forms.

Their relationship, both needy and aggressive, unfolds through a series of fluent duets, bodies melting into each other’s shapes, or tangling in absurdist wit – Ottaviani’s pink socks poking between Nam’s legs to catch his attention, Nam compulsively twitching his trousers up or tucking in his shirt. Sometimes they cling to one another, sometimes they fight, sometimes they dance alone and in agony. The ending lurches into unexpectedly upsetting darkness. As a study of patience and agitation, it’s impressive.

Vidavè is the umbrella name for two more choreographers – Noemi Dalla Vecchia and Matteo Vignali – and Folklore Dynamics is about conformity and the need for resistance. It contains some soaring moments – a little hop offstage with hands knotted; an urgent, questioning duet; a whirling dance in Alessandro Caso’s smoky orange light, where capes look like shadows and wings. But ultimately its earnestness undermines its impact, the piece losing itself in windy polemic rather than developing its own sharp promise.

Star ratings (out of five)
There Was Still Time ★★★★
Folklore Dynamics ★★★