“Save The Last Dance For Me” by Alessandro Sciarroni (Italy)

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.