Alessandro Sciarroni
Save the Last Dance for Me
- 14.11 2026
- Performances
- Centro Cultural de Belém - Foyer of the Grande Auditório
- ages 6+
- 20 min
In a close embrace, two men dance the polka chinata – a nearly extinct dance transformed into a living gesture of memory and transmission.
In Save the Last Dance for Me, Alessandro Sciarroni creates a rare and captivating encounter with the polka chinata — a Bolognese courtship dance dating back to the early twentieth century. Performed by Gianmaria Borzillo and Giovanfrancesco Giannini, Save the Last Dance for Me is an intimate duet unfolding in a continuous spiral of tension and trust: intertwined bodies spinning, descending and rising again in a demanding, almost acrobatic choreography.
Once danced exclusively by men, the Polka Chinata survives today thanks to the meticulous work of Giancarlo Stagni, who reconstructed it from archival footage. When Sciarroni discovered it in 2018, only five practitioners remained.
Balancing performance with an act of preservation, Save the Last Dance for Me is both a celebration and a reunion — an invitation to witness, share, and keep alive a tradition on the verge of disappearing.
Credits
Created by Alessandro Sciarroni With Gianmaria Borzillo, Giovanfrancesco Giannini Artistic Collaborator Giancarlo Stagni Music Aurora Bauzà, Pere Jou Styling Ettore Lombardi Technical Director Valeria Fot Tour Technician Cosimo Maggini Curator, promotion, consultant Lisa Gilardino Administration and Executive Producer Chiara Fava Communication Pierpaolo Ferlaino Produced by corpoceleste_C.C.00#, MARCHE TEATRO Coproduced by Santarcangelo Festival, B.Motion, Festival Danza Urbana
Trailer
Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist active in the field of Performing Arts with several years of experience in visual arts and theater research. His work starts from a conceptual Duchamp-like matrix using a theatrical framework and they are featured in festivals, museums and unconventional spaces, in whole Europe, South and North America and Asia. In his creations he involves professionals from different disciplines and uses some techniques and experiences from dance, as well as circus or sports. His work tries to uncover obsessions, fears and fragilities of the...