Marquee TV has announced a line up of new dance films on its platform from May 2021. It includes two new works from Acosta Danza as well as performances by BalletBoyz and Russell Maliphant Dance Company, together with the Barre Project from William Forsyth and Tiler Peck.
In an exclusive collaboration with Acosta Danza, Marquee TV presents two new films – El Cruce Sobre El Niagara and Soledad – which were works presented in The Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre shortly before the first lockdown in February 2020. Both duets were filmed recently in Havana and will be available from Saturday 1 May 2021.
El Cruce Sobre El Niagara, (The Crossing Over Niagara), choreographed by Marianela Boán, is based on Alonso Alegría's play about the 19th-century tightrope walker Blondin, who carries a friend over the Niagara Falls on his back. When it was first seen in London at Sadler's Wells in 2017, Luke Jennings in The Observer wrote, “The two men, danced with tense poise… prepare for the dizzying feat. Physical balance must be mastered, but there's also a power balance to be negotiated and the work becomes a meditation on human trust. The costumes could be subtler. “Man-thongs,” my guest whispered, concerning Leandra Soto's barely there designs.”
Soledad, choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, is a slick, sexy and emotionally charged duet which explores the wild and tender sides of a relationship. Teresa Guerreiro for Culture Whisper said that the “engrossing” piece was, “An intense pas de deux set to plaintive music by the Mexican singer Chavela Vargas and Gidon Kremer's Hommage a Piazzolla, its tenor could be encapsulated in ‘can't live with you, can't live without you'.”
Soledad was awarded both the Guglielmo Ebreo Prize and the Critics' Prize at the first-ever Biennale Danza e Italia international competition for independent choreographers in 2006 when it first premiered.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
