Sir Wayne McGregor enlisted Benji B, Theresa Baumgartner, Ben Cullen Williams, and Wolford for the Biennale College Dancers X Company Wayne McGregor We Humans Are Movement performances, closing Biennale Danza 2024

Wayne McGregor’s We Humans Are Movement, performed and co-choreographed by the dancers from Biennale College Danza 2024 in collaboration with Company Wayne McGregor, was staged as two consecutive, one-off, site-specific performances, closing Biennale Danza 2024, the 18th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, in Venice on 2 and 3 August 2024.  

“Biennale College has been a highlight of the past three iterations of Biennale Danza, with a programme that has evolved and sharpened since its inception. Our ambition to connect our burgeoning young talent with unrivalled learning, training, mentoring, and opportunities has been fortified by the excellent teaching and mentorship they have received over the past 4 years from internationally respected artists including Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Xie Xin, Saburô Teshigawara, Simone Forti and others. Each season we reflect and revise our offer and work towards a gold standard in dance training in the context of this wonderful international series of Biennale festivals.” Sir Wayne McGregor CBE

Created by Sir Wayne McGregor CBE, Artistic Director of the Dance Department at La Biennale di Venezia, in collaboration with the Biennale College dancers and Company Wayne McGregor, We Humans Are Movement provided these emerging young artists the opportunity to participate in the creation of a new work performed on an international stage. McGregor assembled an exceptional creative team to envision this large-scale, site-specific commission. With live sound mixed by Benji B, lighting design by Theresa Baumgartner, video and projections by artist Ben Cullen Williams and costumes by Wolford, this high-touch, high-tech collaboration took place in the celebrated Sala Grande in the modernist Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, home of the Venice International Film Festival. This marks the first time in the cinema's 87 year history that it has been transformed into a stage for dance.

The Biennale College Danza programme is designed to equip 16 young dancers, selected from over 400 applications, with new skills, knowledge and abilities in their chosen career path; nurtured by inspiring world-class teachers, coaches, choreographers and industry professionals during their 3 month residency.  The 2024 programme, led by Golden Lion, Cristina Caprioli and Artistic Director, Wayne McGregor, has seen the Biennale College dancers participate in classes, workshops, repertory and, vitally, creating new work for the first time in the history of Biennale Danza.