The IX VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK, titled Portals and Constellations, addresses the theme of social connection through the lens of performativity. In times of crisis, individual behaviours are transformed by options and alternatives that seem drastically reduced, obstructing prospects for more inclusive futures. Portals are thresholds of critical utopianism, liminal places between the here and now and the not-yet-here. They are entry points to other worlds and new ways of being. Portals can be those of a castle, a cathedral, a palace, or virtual, symbolic gateways. They provide access to other loci and distant places that pertain to our reality and daily life. In this sense, through performance, artists imagine, create, and enable desirable alternative trajectories that indicate, albeit partially, what our societies and humanity need. We access portals by abandoning prejudices to expand awareness and perception, receiving inspiration, and treading new, stimulating paths. Finally, crossing a portal means trusting that change is possible.