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Bellezza

Five choreographers and nine dancers triumph over time and its storms: Scirocco is a spectacular start for the WinnDance ensemble

by Dorion Weickmann

In the height of summer 2026, Venice is anything but a dream destination: the heat-stricken lagoon city groans under the swelter—even out in the Giardini, where Florentina Holzinger’s pee-themed installation Seaworld Venice reeks just like the algae-choked canals nearby. Those who can, flee to the shade of the nearest trattoria’s parasol until sunset approaches—bringing with it the promise of a cool, refreshing evening of dance. For the 20th time, the Biennale Danza draws visitors from across the globe and the inner circles of the industry to the Serenissima, where Artistic Director Sir Wayne McGregor—whose tenure has just been extended—presents an intriguing, thoughtfully curated program. It reflects the issues of the day without being strident or overbearing, while also carving a path into the future through the Biennale College Danza. Yet no single performance embodies the festival’s motto—"Time does not exist"—with as much rigor and conviction as the debut of the newly formed WinnDance ensemble in the world premiere of Scirocco.

In terms of its cast, the two-part evening—which toured from Venice and has already been performed in Bonn—is of gala caliber: nine world-class dancers have come together for the production. Two qualities give the start-up a unique selling point: first, the 40+ age demographic, and second, the ballet lineage that connects all members through their shared background. This also applies to founders Marijn Rademaker and Slava Tutukin, who launched the label—the acronym stands for "When, if not now"—and will undoubtedly continue to drive it forward. For the fact that WinnDance is a hit and a genuine asset is beyond doubt following the world premiere of Scirocco.

Obsession and Identity
Teatro Malibran near San Marco: the empty stage yawns behind a screen. On it, a news presenter appears in stark black and white, reporting on the Scirocco phenomenon—that desert wind which, in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice, shrouds the palazzi, alleys, and stairways in stifling waves of air. The man is still seated, holding forth on this meteorological malaise, but soon—as a dancing news-matador, narrator, and alter ego—he will trace the key stages of the Venetian downfall that befalls the writer Gustav Aschenbach: a widowed, middle-aged gentleman smitten with a same-sex passion, who ultimately falls victim to the cholera epidemic. It is the dancer-choreographer Paul Chantry whom Javier de Frutos employs in the short films interspersed between the saga’s three main chapters—titled "Obsession," "Identity," and "Horizon"—which distill the essence of the events into a few brief sentences. Chantry moves with a spring in his step—clad in a sweater, trousers, and sneakers—through stark rooms and empty office landscapes, where, at most, a few tables or armchairs break up the visual void. De Frutos, known as one of the international dance scene’s most flamboyant figures with a knack for courting controversy, eschews all provocation in Scirocco. Nevertheless, even the deadly strawberry that Chantry—alias Aschenbach—consumes in a casual act of indulgence appears as alluring as a fetish object.

After the cinematic prelude, the stage square opens and yellowish cones of light sculpt five figures from the darkness. In relaxed suits with an 80s vibe—tailored by Boss—they conquer the stage’s corridors and open spaces. Sparse interactions and sweeping movements lead into an aesthetic laboratory that explores every facet of "obsession": narcissism, infatuation, possession, and the despair of emotional burnout. Until a pas de deux unfolds with such tenderness that it reaches out to the audience, drawing them in and entangling them in the obsession. The man, having just skirted the edge of an emotional abyss, finds solace and strength in his partner’s affection.

Silas Henriksen and Kayoko Everhart are the couple who provide the final visual embodiment of "Obsession," created by the van Opstal siblings. An extroverted tone defines this choreographic opening to the evening, which strings together sweeping arcs, intimate solos, and powerful tutti sequences. What immediately catches the eye—and sets this two-hour multi-tableau apart from the routine—is that the dancers carry their own histories and their own dance DNA with them.

The wealth of their experiences and the artistic imprints stored within their bodies flow into the work’s creation, resonating seamlessly throughout. Hans van Manen observes Igone de Jongh’s spirited elegance at close quarters. Kayoko Everhart and Silas Henriksen excel in contemporary styles reminiscent of Nederlands Dans Theater, while Marijn Rademaker blends the narrative grounding of his Stuttgart years with the more abstract approach he adopted at Amsterdam’s Het Nationale Ballet. Mara Galeazzi impresses as a dynamic, versatile performer with a Royal Ballet background, and Gil Roman as a dedicated heir to the Béjart legacy; meanwhile, Oleksandr Ryabko and Silvia Azzoni reveal, step by step, the artistic richness they have cultivated over decades with the Hamburg Ballet under John Neumeier. Yet one dancer stands out even within this already superb lineup.

A League of Her Own
Diana Vishneva, who has just celebrated her fiftieth birthday, is a ballerina for the ages—a woman who dances because she must. Because the imperative of her persona demands it. A glance, a delayed step, the turn of a head, the delicate trembling of hands before an embrace—moments that defy verbal description. Moments whose melody lingers and spins on like a perpetuum mobile. Vishneva is a shaper of the human image; in the mirrors of her soul, present, past, and future seem to converge until all sense of time dissolves. From Kenneth MacMillan to Jean-Christophe Maillot, from Ohad Naharin to Carolyn Carlson—the immense range of styles, choreographic perspectives, and structures that Vishneva has discovered, explored, and integrated into her art has transformed the former ballerina of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky—and later star of the American Ballet Theatre— into a cosmopolitan figure with a subversive agenda, defying contemporary fault lines. That is why, to the surprise of the New York Times that was poorly informed (and poorly informing) regarding Vishneva, there were no Pussy Riot protests or EU funding withdrawals in Venice—unlike at the opening of the Russian, state-controlled Biennale pavilion. Vishneva is simply not a state artist, even though the NYT would have loved to cast her as exactly that.

The Scirocco program links the central contemporary theme of identity to the concept of "obsession": "Identity"—conceived by New York-based choreographer Omar Román de Jesús—depicts a three-way dynamic of mutual desire, alluding to the homosexuality of Thomas Mann, which was strictly (and at times violently) sublimated and confined to the literary realm. Rather than resorting to simplistic illustration, Omar Román de Jesús transposes this same-sex attraction onto two women—Vishneva in a dress and Azzoni in military-green trousers—while drawing Gil Roman into their spell. Despite the rivalry, a secret understanding emerges among the trio—a sort of posthumous, inverted Jules et Jim echoing the spirit of Truffaut. This captivating pas de trois by a choreographer hitherto little known in Europe employs a fluid, airy, and spirited movement vocabulary that leaves the audience eager for more.

The finale of this Death in Venice adaptation evokes an almost nostalgic atmosphere, brushing against the horizon of the point of no return. Nostalgic, because Rainer Behr—a former dancer with Tanztheater Wuppertal—stages a ballet blanc in the style of Pina Bausch: simply coded, free of frills or distracting noise. Together with the dancers, Behr focuses on the final moments before passing into the afterlife, finding a truly ideal protagonist for the task: Oleksandr Ryabko—who has faded away before the public eye countless times as John Neumeier’s Nijinsky—now rises up against fate. A death throe of gripping intensity that echoes the iconography of Aschenbach from Luchino Visconti’s cinematic masterpiece—specifically the white suit in which the film director had his lead actor, Dirk Bogarde, race through a labyrinthine Venice in 1971, a victim of feverish delusions. These scenes bring the sequence of episodes to a close—musically unspectacular, perhaps, yet remaining a kaleidoscope of sounds ranging from Ricardo Villalobos to Hildur Guðnadóttir.

A Stellar Duo
Things unfold quite differently in the second part of the evening. John Neumeier—whose 2003 version of Tod in Venedig has already become something of a classic—has chosen to pay homage to the Bridge of Sighs: that passageway spanning the Rio di Palazzo between the Doge’s Palace and the prison, which afforded prisoners a final glimpse of the lagoon. Neumeier’s Bridge of Sighs unfolds in much the same way, set between two classic songs: Friedrich Hollaender’s Falling in Love Again (1930)—with which Marlene Dietrich cast her vocal spell in Der Balue Engel—and Kurt Weill’s September Song (1938), performed by Bryan Ferry. Nestled between these two famous "bridgeheads" is a melancholic composition by Dmitri Shostakovich—himself a figure torn between art and totalitarianism: a work for a small ensemble, an existential lament, as the delicately woven String Quartet in B-flat minor (1970) trickles into the silence.

A man bids farewell. One foot rests on a wooden ladder to the heavens, while the other hovers in mid-air. He waves into the distance, calling out for his mother. Behind him, the azure horizon shifts—first gently into yellow, then into a somber violet—as a handful of figures gradually emerge: echoes from the rich stream of consciousness. His mother is among them. She offers a final caress before breathing her last. The son holds her in his arms—an inversion of the biblical Pietà—and surrenders to his memories of a young, radiant woman. Suddenly, the child he once was comes bounding and darting forward—a boy cherished deeply by his mother. This moment will stay with the man until the very threshold of his own death.

This half-hour miniature, in which Marijn Rademaker and Diana Vishneva shine as a stellar duo, takes its place among John Neumeier’s late works. It demonstrates that the American choreographer—well into his eighties and two seasons removed from the helm of the Hamburg Ballet—has lost none of his passion for storytelling through dance, and still has more to convey than many who have followed in his footsteps. Neumeier articulates his vision with precision and vividness, translating the Biennale’s motto—“Time does not exist”—into art without emotional reticence: by transforming time and the fleeting span of a life into something relative and relational.

A warm wind blows through the summer night outside the doors of the Malibran, drifting eastward across the water toward the Island of the Dead, San Michele—the final resting place of Sergei Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky. The Scirocco that WinnDance is sending out into the world from Venice honors a legacy that demands the courage to take risks, to embrace beauty, and to invite contradiction. The present day is in dire need of this.

Furrther performances in Baden-Baden: The World of John Neumeier festival, Theater Baden-Baden, 3–4 October; Ludwigshafen, Theater im Pfalzbau, 24 October; The Hague, Amare, 18–19 December;

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