Until June 21st, the Biennale Teatro 2026 brings to the stage performative expressions from different countries (and ethnic groups)
The declaration of intent is already in the title of the 54th edition of the Venice Theater Biennale: Alter Native with its over 200 artists, 52 events, a program (until 21 June) that crosses Greece, Indonesia, India, Rwanda, New Zealand and of course Europe, has the task of seeking theatrical forms that escape the dominant languages of the West, crossing cultures, rituals and traditions capable of producing new visions of the present.
The project desired and studied by Willem Dafoe, director for the second year of the Biennale is ambitious, but if on the one hand the need to recover an anthropological dimension of theater that had recently been sacrificed on the altar of authorship, of the hybridization of languages and technology is sacrosanct, on the other hand, however, there is the risk that practices coming from “other” geographical and cultural contexts end up being observed through an exoticizing lens.
On the subject however, Dafoe thus responds to Panorama: «Theatre is theatre. Although in different cultures it may address different audiences and arise from different traditions, all these forms aspire to inspire wonder and reflection on the human experience. Theater doesn’t really exist without the human element: even a puppet show needs a human performer and a collective experience. Western theater traditions can learn a lot from other forms.” And then he remembers: «When I went to Gemmiappone for the first time as a young man, I saw the Noh theater and, although it was something foreign to my experience and born from a different culture, I was deeply inspired by it. He revealed to me the true power of the gesture, of time and of the presence of the actor in the theater.”
Certainly there is a lot to learn from artists such as Satoshi Miyagi, Sharmila Biswas, Lemi Ponifasio or Dorcy Rugamba whose work indicates a precise desire to look towards scenic practices in which ritual, memory and community continue to be founding elements of the performative act. However, the doubt remains whether otherness will become an aesthetic category, almost a mark of authenticity, if not even a form of ideological opportunism: at a time when the language of diversity and inclusion has become an integral part of the cultural strategies of even large institutions, the celebration of peripheral cultures could easily transform into a self-referential gesture, useful above all to confirm the open-mindedness of those who organise.
Perhaps rightly oblivious to all these critical assumptions, Dafoe explains: «The title Alternative, or more precisely, Alter Native has no precise meaning, as the etymology can be vague or evocative. The idea is to think of Alter as a change and Native as your nature. Or Alter as other and Native as the culture of origin.” And then he concludes: «I don’t consider it a radical program. I rather hope that it is a new, fresh program. I try to bring a theater that speaks directly to human beings through a collective ritual. We are creatures of the senses and, for me, theater is not so much about ideas as it is about experience: a provocation to wonder.”
Meanwhile, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement goes this year to Emma Dante, the Sicilian director whose theater was born from a precise language, geography and social tension. And which does not offer the public the charm of distance, but rather the discomfort of proximity. And this is perhaps precisely the most interesting lesson of the 2026 Biennale.
