Alessandro Sciarroni + Thick & Tight

Part of Submerge Festival.

A dance double bill consisting of works from Alessandro Sciarroni and Thick and Tight.

Submerge in association with The Lowry present Alessandro Sciarroni and Thick and Tight, performing back to back in an unforgettable evening of dance in the unique surroundings of Salford Lads Club. Plus, stick around after for a free workshop on Polka Chinata; no experience necessary!

Alessandro Sciarroni – Save the Last Dance For Me.

In Save the last dance for me Alessandro Sciarroni works together with the dancers Gianmaria Borzillo and Giovanfrancesco Giannini on the steps of a Bolognese dance called Polka Chinata. It is a courtship dance originally performed by men only and dating back to the early 1900s: physically demanding, almost acrobatic, it requires that the dancers embrace each other and whirl as they bend to their knees almost to the ground.

The work was created in collaboration with Giancarlo Stagni, a Filuzziani dance master who revived this ancient tradition thanks to the rediscovery and study of some documentation videos dating back to the 1960s. Sciarroni discovered this dance in December 2018 when the dance was practiced in Italy only by 5 people in total. The project consists of a performance performed by the two dancers and a series of workshops aimed at spreading and reviving this popular tradition in danger of extinction.

Thick and Tight – Cage and Paige: We Could Go On and On.

Eleanor Perry (Tight) and Daniel Hay-Gordon (Thick) have spent a decade building a unique style, which combines drag, drama, queer culture, lip-syncing, design, mime and high-quality dance. Their new short “Cage & Paige: We Could Go On and On” pairs the words and movements of the avant-garde composer John Cage with Elaine Paige, queen of the musical, in ways that are hilarious but also revealing.

As Cage says: “There are two things that don’t have to mean anything; one is music and the other is laughter. Don’t have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.”

Thick & Tight will be joined by performer and collaborator Azara Meghie, who offers a warm-hearted and full-bodied tribute to the inspirational qualities of Grace Jones in “Finding Grace”