The Herd/Less

The dance of Mamela Nyamza, the Silver Lion of Biennale Danza 2026, is a hymn to the liberation of bodies and an assertion of identity that challenges social conditioning, racial prejudice, gender norms and artistic conventions. Dismantling the codes of the classical ballet in which she was trained the South African choreographer and activist develops an original vocabulary that intertwines different alphabets, drawing on — in order to reaffirm them — her cultural roots and her autobiography as a Black, queer woman and artist. “I'm not using a pen to write my thesis. My thesis is written by my body” she declares.

The Herd/Less, presented here in its European premiere, speaks of the illusion of a wonderful world beneath which lie violence and profound vulnerability, while exploring the double meaning of the “herd”: both the symbol of a harmonious collective and an image of subjection, control and submission.