VENERE IN TEATRO 2026

Forte Marghera is getting ready to host the sixth edition of Venere in Teatro (Venus in Theatre), the contemporary dance festival organized by Live Arts Cultures, which each year transforms the spaces of this former Venetian military outpost into performance venues. Nine evenings, nineteen guest companies and artists, alongside seminars, open practices, and experimental work by young artists.
The title chosen for this edition, Ritratti al presente (Portraits in the Present), portrays a time crossed by its own uncertainties: memories, traces of origins, and nostalgia for the past intertwine with a tension toward the future, in an unstable balance between speed and complexity. Across the works in the programme, a common thread moves between uchronias and utopias, past and future, blending mythological references with artificial intelligence — a portrait made of history and stories, of desires and new scenarios.
Among this edition’s guests: Raffaella Giordano and Stefania Tansini, Silvia Rampelli, Cristina Kristal Rizzo, Ambra Senatore, and Balletto Civile, alongside numerous site-specific interventions — including in the Fort’s outdoor spaces — debuts, works-in-progress, and regional premieres. Among the productions, the festival also features resta (stay) by Andrigo, Aliprandi / You Theater, directed by the festival’s artistic director, Marianna Andrigo.
The festival once again confirms itself as a crossroads of collaborations with the local area: long-standing relationships with the Venice Biennale, Fondazione Musei Civici, the Accademia di Belle Arti, and Ca’ Foscari, joined this year by a new partnership with Acta (Associazione Culturale Teatro ed Azioni), born from the SguardItineranti project of Professor Cristina Grazioli and linked to the University of Padua.

Featured image: Venere in Teatro 2025, ph. Lorenza Cini, © Live Arts Cultures