One of Wayne McGregor’s innovations as artistic director of the Venice Dance Biennale – a position he will continue to hold for the next two years – was to introduce an open call for work by Italian choreographers. The commission aims to support dance-makers in the tricky mid-period of their careers, when they are neither rising stars nor established talents, giving them opportunity to develop, to run risks, to grow.
Both this year’s commissions were shown on a single day, and both felt full of ideas and intent. There Was Still Time, by Maria Chiara de’ Nobili and Alexander Miller, who work together as Miller de Nobili, is explicitly inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Yet while its two dancers, Nam Tran Xuan and Alessandro Ottaviani, one a specialist in hip-hop, the other in breaking, quote from the play and refer to its scenes, their absurdist hour upon the stage takes different forms.
