This critically acclaimed dance production brings a mythologised Cuba to Nottingham on a cold November night. A world where gods walk and men are transformed by love...
As the audience file in, two surly young men stare at them from the stage. Who are they? What do they want? But these men are just the beginning of the tale. Mariposa transports us to Cuba, to a dimly-lit dockland of gay sex workers, frustrated sailors, of furtive love in the balmy night, and above all, where the queer deities of Santeria roam.
The Denada Dance Company brings us this wonderful and ambitious creation of sound and movement. A queer reimagining of Madame Butterfly, no less. Boy meets boy. Boy loses boy. Will boy find boy again in a world oozing prejudice and hostility? As the story unfolds, we learn more of Mariposa’s life in the sex trade. Preston finds a wife. A brothel owner takes Mariposa under her wing. Sex tourists visit. Santeria priestesses evoke their gods and goddesses.
The choreography is dazzling, with Mariposa (Miles Kearly) and Preston (Daniel Baines) hypnotising us with their bare-chested symphony of lovemaking. The soundscape is beguiling: foghorns, seagull shrieks, percussive twangs, Spanish ballads and of course, the strains of Puccini’s aria from Madame Butterfly, all echo eerily across the stage.
a fable of queer divinity
Themes entwine. One being the theme of sacrifice. Choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra spoke in his recent Leftlion interview how gay life needs sacrifice for self-realisation. But that this sacrifice can lead to transformation. Quite literally, as act one ends with Mariposa cocooned by his gods. Act two opens with him emerging from his chrysalis, reborn into something new. And, as the Spanish speakers will have spotted, mariposa itself is the Spanish word for butterfly.
This is very much love in the time of AIDS and that too seeps into the storyline. At the same time, the dance conjures up memories of the movie Querelle, with all that steamy homoeroticism. And colonialism too leaves its ugly mark upon the lives of our protagonists.
Kudos to Carlos Pons Guerra, the Leeds-based founder of Denada and the creative force behind Mariposa. This epic is very much his vision, “a fable of queer divinity’ as he terms it in the programme. His passion for dance is impressive and no doubt, this is the first of many boundary-pushing works yet to come.
The ending may have you in tears as it did many theatregoers on the night. But cathartic tears. You will exit into the chilly winter air with your soul invigorated. Mariposa is a triumph.
Mariposa plated at the Lakeside Arts on Tuesday 26th of November 2024.
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