Silver Lion of Biennale Danza 2026, Mamela Nyamza has developed a choreographic practice in which artistic gesture and political stance are inseparable, placing the liberation of the body and the affirmation of identity at its core. A South African choreographer and activist, Nyamza dismantles from within the codes of the classical ballet tradition in which she was trained, forging a distinctive language that moves across different registers and traditions while remaining deeply rooted in her own experience as a Black, queer woman and artist. “I do not write my thesis with a pen, but with my body on stage,” she has said.
Presented in its European premiere, The Herd/Less engages with the ambiguity embedded in the idea of the “herd”: on the one hand, the image of a cohesive collective body; on the other, a figure of control, submission and loss of autonomy. From this tension, the work unfolds an inquiry into the fracture between the illusion of a harmonious world and the violence concealed within it, exposing a condition of vulnerability that is both individual and shared

19 July h. 8 pm
21 July h. 7 pm
Teatro Piccolo Arsenale