State of Darkness / Bardo

American dancer and choreographer Molissa Fenley made dance history with State of Darkness, a work in which a solo dancer enters into dialogue with a full orchestra through Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Created in 1988, the piece has since become a touchstone of endurance and technical rigor for generations of performers. In Venice, this intense solo will be performed by Cassandra Trenary, former principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and later with the Vienna State Opera. “It is a very direct exchange between the score and the choreography. At the final climax, this modern woman emerges into the light: whole, strong and alive.”

Fenley will also exceptionally return to perform Bardo, the solo she conceived for Keith Haring to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of the artist, friend and longtime collaborator. “A tribute to Keith’s legacy, imagining him passing through the Bardo in search of the path toward his next life.” In Tibetan tradition, “bardo” designates the liminal space between death and rebirth.