The Venice Dance Biennale has opened its 20th edition under artistic director Wayne McGregor, showcasing works that push the boundaries of what counts as dance, from a piece built almost entirely around light, smoke and sound to more traditional movement-based performances. This year's programme matters because it marks two decades of Venice's dedicated dance festival and features a wide-ranging debate, involving McGregor and four former directors, about how the definition of dance itself continues to evolve.

Highlights include Andrea Salustri's Invisible, which uses amplified sound, light and billowing smoke rather than conventional choreography, and Soa Ratsifandrihana's Fampitaha, Fampita, Fampitàna, exploring diaspora memory through movement, song and guitar. McGregor's chosen theme, "Time Does Not Exist", draws on physicist Carlo Rovelli's ideas about quantum gravity and non-linear time. South African choreographer Mamela Nyamza received this year's Silver Lion for an emerging artist for her politically charged piece The Herd/Less, while the lifetime achievement Golden Lion will later go to Aboriginal Australian company Bangarra Dance Theatre.