Mariposa // DeNada Dance Theatre
Under the flickering neon lights of a distant Caribbean port, a local rent boy and a foreign sailor fall ominously in love in choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra’s inventive reimagining of Puccini’s seminal opera. DeNada Dance Theatre’s Madame Butterfly is immersed in a mist of Havana smoke, within which a young man is asked to sacrifice his gender in exchange of love and a better life.
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 santeria spirits. Engulfed in a tropical storm of repressed desires, this brand new production is a passionate and deeply moving exploration of what we are ready to sacrifice in order to be loved and accepted.
Set to an original score by Spanish composer Luis Miguel Cobo, which takes its inspiration from Caribbean sounds as well as Puccini, with libretto by French- Indian writer Karthika Nair, with designs by Ryan Laight and lighting by Barnaby Booth.
Photography by Emma Kauldhar and Joe Armitage.
Dancers: Harry Alexander, Stan West, Corey Annand, Michael Márquez, Jaivant Patel, Leonora Stapleton, Josef Perou
“★★★★”
“There is nothing like Pons Guerra’s work elsewhere on the British stage ”
“Pons Guerra’s Mariposa is full of vivid images, super choreography, and impressive and thoughtful characterisation.”
“A trans Madama Butterfly that will linger in the mind and will take a lot of beating. ”
“Wickedly subversive”
“The combination of tenderness and savage disappointment make Mariposa a powerful, if disturbing, show.”
“Best of all, it’s a great piece of storytelling; one I suspect most are unlikely to forget. ”
“Bold and thought-provoking, it does not flinch from any kind of potent imagery or radical ideas.”
Credits
Choreography and direction: Carlos Pons Guerra
Music: Luis Miguel Cobo
Libretto: Karthika Nair
Design: Ryan Laight
Lighting: Barnaby Booth
Producer: Sarah Shead
Premiered at Birmingham Hippodrome, September 2021
Commissioned by Birmingham Dance Hub and Spin Arts, with further support from DanceXchange, Arts Council England, the British Council, Northern Ballet, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Yorkshire Dance