Mariposa

by DeNada Dance Theatre

About Mariposa

In the years since he founded DeNada Dance Theatre, Carlos Pons Guerra has achieved an enviable reputation as a choreographer. His work combines lacerating social comment with outrageous showmanship. It’s witty, it’s penetrating, and it’s personal.

The Observer

Pons Guerra’s Mariposa is full of vivid images, super choreography, and impressive and thoughtful characterisation.

Dancing Times

Choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra’s Mariposa is a queer reimagining of Puccini’s seminal opera, Madame Butterfly. Under the neon lights of a distant Caribbean port, a local rent boy and a foreign sailor fall ominously in love.

Mariposa is an operatic dance drama that transports Puccini’s Orientalist libretto to post-revolution Cuba, to a dockland world of faded showgirls, hopeful rent boys, troubled sailors and Santería spirits. Engulfed in a tropical storm of repressed desires, this production is a passionate and deeply moving exploration of what we are ready to sacrifice in order to be loved and accepted.

With original music by Spanish composer Luis Miguel Cobo, inspired by Caribbean sounds as well as Puccini, Mariposa will enthrall dance and opera audiences alike.

About DeNada Dance Theatre

DeNada Dance Theatre is an independent LGBTQ+ dance company fully committed to the promotion of diversity and inclusion of non-normative identities. Their purpose is to voice underrepresented narratives through high quality dance, performing work in a variety of contexts to offer visibility and representation to the LGBTQ+ community. Stemming from their Hispanic and Latinx heritage, the company also promotes transcultural relations and celebrates the cultural diversity of the audiences they perform for, and the artists they work with.

DeNada Dance Theatre fully believes in the transformative power of dance: its capacity to mobilise change, to heal and to cause reflection. They seek to entertain through extravagant theatricality, kitschy physicality, and accessible narratives.

Based in the North of England, the company tours internationally to theatres, outdoor and unconventional spaces. Nominated as Best Independent Company by the UK Critic’s Circle, DeNada has taken a unique place in the UK dance sector as a company offering poignant, innovative and exciting work that places the underrepresented at the fore.

DeNada's choreography often draws from folklore: flamenco, Latin dance forms, Caribbean folklore, Hispanic social dances, and more, which we merge with contemporary dance and classical ballet to explore how dance forms an essential part of our cultural identities. Their work deconstructs and reimagines traditional forms so that they may better speak to us today, and so they may include contemporary ways of understanding gender and sexuality.

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Cast & Credits

Choreography and direction: Carlos Pons Guerra
Music: Luis Miguel Cobo
Libretto: Karthika Nair
Design: Ryan Laight
Lighting: Barnaby Booth
Rehearsal Director: Yen Ching Lin
Producer: Sarah Shead
Technical Manager: Josh Tomalin

Trailer

  • Mariposa Trailer

Gallery

  • A tender scene. Two male presenting dancers are kneeling on the floor, one in front of the other, arms wrapped tightly around each other’s chest. It is Mariposa and the sailor Preston. Is this the start of a passionate love affair? A duffle bag is positioned in the foreground of the shot.
  • Two male presenting dancers on stage. The first dancer is looking down whilst holding the small of the back of the second dancer, whose torso is arched backwards, draped across the right arm of his partner. Despite the sunglasses and sunhat, from the blank facial expression it appears this second dancer is passed out.
  • A solo figure wrapped mummy-like from head to toe in bright red coloured cloth stands alone on stage. Both hands are held closely to the chest, the head pointing slightly up and the overall posture conveying the anguish and pleading of someone who has been crushed emotionally.
  • A muted duotone shot of a male and female presenting dance duo. The female stands on pointe, her right hand raised straight high above her head, with her elongated body and face turned towards her partner conveys absolute trust, love and adoration. The male’s stance is one of strength, (legs apart, feet firmly planted on the ground with knees slightly bent) is holding tightly to her left hand.
  • A tall male presenting dancer, dressed only in white shorts is standing on pointe, leaning slightly forward, head bent with his arms outstretched gives the impression of being weak and fragile. He’s leaning in towards a female presenting dancer who is holding both his hands in support and looking intently into his face.

Choose dates and book

  • : Followed by a BSL Interpreted Post-Show Talk. Book Now

  • : Book Now