Mariposa, a queer tragedy inspired by Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, visits MAST Mayflower Studios on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 November 2024.
Under the flickering neon lights of a distant Caribbean port, a local rent boy and a foreign sailor fall ominously in love – and a young man is asked to sacrifice his gender in exchange for love and a better life.
Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish) is choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra’s queer reimagining of Puccini’s seminal opera, Madame Butterfly. An operatic dance drama, it transports Puccini’s Orientalist libretto to post-revolution Cuba, to a dockland world of faded showgirls, hopeful rent boys, troubled sailors and divine queer spirits.
Engulfed in a tropical storm of repressed desires, the production is a passionate and deeply moving exploration of what we are ready to sacrifice in order to be loved and accepted.
Nicknamed the Pedro Almodovar of dance by the BBC, Carlos Pons Guerra is one of the UK’s leading voices in contemporary queer dance. With a truly distinctive style, theatricality and aesthetic, his work explores gender, cultural and sexual identity. Carlos’ work often stems from his personal experience and his desire to put LGBTQ+ narratives on the dance stage, stylishly staged in ways that evoke his Hispanic/Latinx cultural heritage.
Created in 2021, Mariposa revisits the problematic gender and colonialist aspects of Madame Butterfly and asks how iconic operas and narratives like this can remain relevant today.
Mariposa is set to an original score by three-time winner of the Spanish MAX Awards for the Performing Arts, Luis Miguel Cobo, which takes its inspiration from Caribbean sounds as well as Puccini. The libretto is by French-Indian writer Karthika Nair (whose feminist, award-winning poetic retelling of the Mahabharata, Until the Lions, was adapted for dance by Akram Khan). Costume and set designs are by 2023 Olivier Award Nominee Ryan Dawson Laight and lighting is by Guerra’s long-time collaborator Barnaby Booth.
An exceptional cast includes Dan Baines (BalletBoyz) as Preston, the sailor, Holly Saw (Mathew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands) as Kate, while Elle Taylor-Francis (Northern Ballet and Leipzig Ballet) and Jaivant Patel (Jaivant Patel Dance) will share the role of Madame Gertrudis, the brothel owner.
Tickets for Carlos Pons Guerra’s Mariposa (22 – 23 November 2024) are on sale at mayflower.org.uk or 02380 711811.
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