New calls for applications of the Biennale College Teatro

The programme of the Biennale College Teatro of La Biennale di Venezia starts today with the launch of the three new calls posted on the website www.labiennale.org addressed to:

• Italian directors under 35 (deadline 29 January 2021)
• Italian authors under 40 (deadline 10 February 2021)
• Italian and foreign performers under 40 (deadline 20 February 2021)
  Call for applications

The new Directors Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte, better known as ricci/forte, step in at the head of the Biennale College, consolidating the idea of experimentation and the support for new talents: the focus on Italian directors and dramaturgy in particular, opens up this year for the first time to include an international call for performers, which will select an original performance piece for the outdoors, choosing locations that are significant for the daily life of the lagoon.
Considering the great interest in original works of performance art in the rest of the world, with their strong link to the Visual Arts, to Music and to Dance, La Biennale di Venezia believes it is necessary and important to invite international artists to take on the challenge of a style of theatre, such as site-specific performance theatre, that can address the issues of the contemporary age.

As ricci/forte explain: “Driven by this need to bring the Theatre back to audiences, who are fearful of infection and unaccustomed to the ritual of the stage, the need to build a performative gesture within the social perimeters of daily life, we will attempt to reconstruct the atmosphere of Renaissance Venice, in which the theatre will occupy its vital spaces, revitalizing the sense of collective togetherness that art must learn to bring to its citizens”.
The theme of the performance must be in line with the concept chosen by ricci/forte for the next Biennale Teatro, Blue, “understood as acceptance/infinite distance from what is other than us: the resurgence of the Pandemic and the interpretation of a new grammar of communication will constitute the investigative tracks”.

The site-specific project will develop across the year 2021 with two selection phases, at the end of which two winners will participate in the production phase and finally will present their works during the next Biennale Teatro (2 > 11 July 2021).

On the strength of their success in these past years, the programmes for the directors under 35 and the authors under 40, created with the intent to give a voice and visibility to those who work in Theatre in our country, will be developed over the two-year period 2021-2022, structured into a series of selection phases.

The evaluations in the first will lead to the selection of a single director who will win a production prize, with which he/she will develop, supported by the Artistic Directors, and produce a play to present as part of the Biennale Teatro 2022.

The selection in the second will produce two winning authors, who will present their original texts in the form of a stage reading, in collaboration with a recognized centre of theatre education, at the Biennale Teatro 2022.

Biennale College is an experience that engages every Department of La Biennale di Venezia – Cinema, Dance, Music, Theatre – to promote young talents offering them the opportunity to work closely with the masters to develop their creations.

Biennale College Teatro, organized by La Biennale di Venezia, enjoys the support of the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities – General Direction for the Performing Arts and the Regione del Veneto.