WGXC-90.7 FM

Save The Last Dance For Me

Jul 29, 2023: 7pm- 8:30 pm
PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century

2980 Route 66 | Chatham , NY 12037 | 518-392-6121
http://www.ps21chatham.org/

From Italian theatermaker Alessandro Sciarroni, recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance at the 2019 Venice Biennale, an inventive revival of the polka chinata, a nearly lost Bolognese courtship dance from the last century. The polka chinata (crouched polka) is a rarity in ballroom dancing: it was performed exclusively by pairs of men. It originated in Bologna around 1900 and had nearly disappeared when Giancarlo Stagni, a professor and dance master, rediscovered it in the 1990s and began teaching it to his dancers. Theater-maker and choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni, whose work inhabits the tension between tradition and modernity, found the dance, its hypnotic nature, and its near-extinction fascinating. In addition to the performance at PS21, dancers Giovanfrancesco Giannini and Gianmaria Borzillo will lead free workshops in polka chinata following the performance for dancers and non-dancers, diving into the polka and invoking the spirit of the community to save the dance from the brink of extinction.