Three Italian dancers who were on tour in Saudi Arabia died in the desert outside Riyadh after their car went off the road. The dynamics of the incident are not yet clear. The three dancers were on a sightseeing trip on their day off.
Giampiero Giarri, 32, from Ardea near Rome, Antonio Caggianelli, 33, from Bisceglie, and Nicolas Esposto, 28, from Cammarata (Agrigento) were freelance dancers working in television and theatre. All three men were in the chorus of the long-running, well-known Italian musical Aggiungi un posto a tavola.
Giarri studied ballet, then modern and contemporary dance, and participated in many musicals in Italy, as well as pop videos and television specials. Last year was in Daniele Cipriani's production of Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus seen at the major Italian open-air summer festivals.
Antonio Caggianelli had a similar career path taking him to the Arena di Verona, the Royal Opera House in Muscat, the major Italian theatres as well as being seen in many television programmes and working as a dancer in opera productions. He was also active as a teacher and choreographer.
Nicolas Esposto was born in France in 1993 and began studying artistic gymnastics at seven. He studied at the Nuova Scuola of the Balletto di Roma and mixed television appearances with work in contemporary dance and musicals.
Antonio Caggianelli
Nicolas Esposto
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.
