Performances at the Arsenale from Monday 18 to Sunday 24 November

A vibrant performance programme animates the spaces of the Arsenale from Monday 18 to Sunday 24 November during the closing week of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Eight artists with works on display in the Biennale Arte 2024 - Isaac Chong Wai, Joshua Serafin, Gabrielle Goliath, WangShui, La Chola Poblete, Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic, and Ahmed Umar - will push the boundaries of traditional art forms by highlights emphasising choreography, sound and moving images. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and focusing on identity, migration, and collective consciousness, the performances invite contemplation on bodies in motion, reminding us that everyone experiences moments of feeling like an outsider, and encouraging visitors to embrace new perspectives on the intricacies of bodily experiences.

11:30 am / 3:30 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

In Falling Reversely, Isaac Chong Wai works with performers of Asian descent reinterpreting movement as a powerful form of solidarity and resistance. Together, they study CCTV footage of Asian individuals who fell due to physical assaults in public spaces, striving to slow and reverse the trajectory of these attacks through bodily movement. As a response to systemic violence, Chong imagines an alternate future: where those who are marginalized integrate linked movements in their falling, reversing moments of attack and transforming them into new avenues of protest.

Performers: Isaac Chong Wai, Ichi Go (Sachiko Ikutani), Selina Shida Hack, Hoyoung Im, Ryota Maeda, Adela Maharani, Soyeon Shin, Vasundhara Srivastava, Nobutaka Shomura, Po-Nien Wang, SueKi Yee, Scarlet Yu.

11:30 am / 3:30 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

4.30 pm, Tese dei Soppalchi
JOSHUA SERAFIN
PEARLS (60’)

In their artistic practice, Joshua Serafin addresses the wounds left by colonisation on body and community. In PEARLS, the artist draws from nonnormative genders revered in pre-colonial Philippines, where high priestesses embodied this diversity through generations. Alongside fellow Filipino performers Lukresia Quismundo and Bunny Cadag, Serafin reclaims this heritage and envisions a future where bodies are once again divine and free from conventional gender norms. PEARLS becomes a healing exorcise, transforming dark and traumatic histories into beauty, akin to pearls forming in an oyster’s mantle.

Performers: Joshua Serafin, Bunny Cadag, Lukresia Quismundo

Disclaimer: Flashing and strong lights and haze effects are used in the performance. The performance may include elements of partial nudity.

11:30 am / 3:30 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

12:30 pm, Corderie
LA CHOLA POBLETE
¿Cómo se representa a un indio? (35’) Texts

In this performance, La Chola Poblete and Lola Bhajan address ideas of cultural representation by challenging the Western gaze. The piece combines ritualistic elements, voice, and physicality to confront the audience’s understanding of Indigenous identity. Through symbolic gestures and a powerful interplay of sound and movement, the artists question stereotypes imposed by the Western gaze. As they alternate between songs, spoken word, and interactive actions, Poblete and Bhajan create an immersive atmosphere, provoking reflection on how cultural identities are constructed, perceived, and often distorted.

Performers: La Chola Poblete, Lola Bhajan
Disclaimer: this performance may include elements of partial nudity.

4:30 pm, Tese dei Soppalchi
JOSHUA SERAFIN
PEARLS (60’)

11:30 am / 3:30 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

2:00 pm, Sale d’Armi E
GABRIELLE GOLIATH
Elegy (2015-) (60’)

In these Elegy performances, seven opera singers perform a ritual lament, invoking the absent presence of individuals displaced and killed in the Ovaherero and Nama Genocide. Each performance is accompanied by a speculative reflection, scripted by scholar-activist Dr Zoé Samudzi. Crossing lines of history, geography and difference, the call to mourn those lost to the genocidal colonial project in Namibia could not be more urgent, as we seek to account for and transform present conditions of differentially valued life.

Performer: Leila Alexander, Rachel Duckett, Claudia Graziadei, Makeda Monnet, Isabella Moore, Roberta Philip, Patrícia Silveira, Roxanne Tataei.

4:30 pm, Artiglierie
WangShui in collaboration with Alberto Bustamante
La Culebra (55’)

Adapted from their previous techno-opera Atlacoya, La Culebra is a live performance conceived by WangShui and Alberto Bustamante as a closing ritual for the Biennale Arte 2024. Set within WangShui’s chamber-like installation, which features their Cathexis paintings exploring the serpent as a cipher for knowledge, violence, and love, the performance echoes the story of the Tlaloc monolith. La Bruja de Texcoco embodies the serpent, her voice moving fluidly through Indigenous Mexican music traditions, orchestral choruses, and contemporary club sounds, weaving time and space with the frequency of love.

Co-produced by TONO
Performer: La Bruja de Texcoco
Music: Lauro Robles, Alberto Bustamante, and La Bruja de Texcoco
The performance will open with a ceremonial prelude by Little Owl and Debit
Costumes: Bárbara Sánchez-Kane

11:30 am / 3:30 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

2:00 pm, Sale d’Armi E
GABRIELLE GOLIATH
Elegy (2015-) (60’)

4:30 pm, Artiglierie
WangShui in collaboration with Alberto Bustamante
La Culebra (55’)

11:30 am, Corderie
PUPPIES PUPPIES (JADE GUANARO KURIKI-OLIVO)
My heart is beating as I lip sync to this song (10’)

This performance features Puppies Puppies’ work Electric Dress (Atsuko Tanaka) (2023) – a wearable neon sculpture honouring those lost in the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a queer nightclub in Orlando, Florida. A performer dances and twirls around the space while donning the Electric Dress, lip-syncing to two pop songs whose catchy tunes are likely to move visitors to sing along, creating a collective moment of remembrance through celebration.

Performer: Martina Rota

12:30 pm, Corderie
ANTONIO GUZMAN & IVA JANKOVIC
Messengers of the Sun - Dub Waves & Interferences (20’)

Messengers of the Sun intertwines processional parades, experimental sounds, and dance, in an Afrofuturist performance leading to the duo of artists Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic’s indigo-blue textile installation at the Arsenale. The live music performance merges diasporic beats with dub, punk, electro, poetry, and ritualistic chanting, reflecting on the fabrics’ ties to migration, race, and cultural hybrid identities. Its title nods to Sun Ra’s myth, where lost children symbolise ancestral migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Sirius-B galaxy.

Performers: Antonio Jose Guzman & Puppets Family Dance Academy, Treviso (Junior Fall, Aicha Dieme, Alexia Nicola)
Music: Transillumination #1 / EDS Bass Mash Up Vol. 5 by Guzman & Jankovic

3:00 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

4:30 pm, Sale d’Armi E
AHMED UMAR
Talitin (The Third) (40’)

Ahmed Umar’s performance is a radical reclamation of the Sudanese Bridal Dance. A rite of passage performed during the Sudanese traditional wedding ceremony. The dance is usually personalised to each bride, with a unique set of songs and choreography. Claiming his place in this tradition, Umar’s performance is the first of its kind to present this dance on a male queer body while preserving its traditional elements. Trained by Sudanese singer Alsarah, who was trained by a lineage of women before her, she takes on the role of “alwazira” in presenting the bride to the audience.

11:30 am, Corderie
PUPPIES PUPPIES (JADE GUANARO KURIKI-OLIVO)
My heart is beating as I lip sync to this song (10’)

12.30 pm, Corderie
ANTONIO GUZMAN & IVA JANKOVIC
Messengers of the Sun - Dub Waves & Interferences (20’)

3.00 pm, Corderie
ISAAC CHONG WAI
Falling Reversely (35’)

4.30 pm, Sale d’Armi E
AHMED UMAR
Talitin (The Third) (40’)

* To attend the Performances in the programme, visitors must possess a valid admission ticket to Biennale Arte 2024.