DeNada Dance Theatre, headed by choreographer and artistic director Carlos Pons Guerra, has announced its 2017 National Tour of Ham and Passion following a successful tour in 2015/16.
From a dingy cabaret in Civil War Barcelona, where a drag artiste murders her fascist lover backstage, passing through a lustful duel of seduction between two machos and ending with a divine apparition in a kitchen of 1950s Seville, Ham and Passion is described as "a filmic spectacle that promises to subvert the senses—meaty dance soaked in a salsa of passion".
The tour opens at London’s Wilton’s Music Hall on 21 February for a two-night run before heading to Exeter’s Cygnet Theatre on 23 February. On 29 March, DeNada shares a bill with Leeds-based company Sardoville at The Lowry, Salford Quays.
Heading south, the company will perform at Pavilion Dance South West in Bournemouth on 6 April and at Swindon Dance on the 7 April, ending the 2017 spring tour at Lincoln Drill Hall in Lincoln on 27 April.
Carlos Pons Guerra, choreographer and director for DeNada Dance Theatre, said, “we are very excited to be touring Ham and Passion for a second tour, and by the prospect of performing at cities and for audiences we haven’t visited before.
"We are currently living through some strange times and I hope that shows like Ham and Passion, set in a not-so-distant and oppressive past, can help us reflect and question what we are living through today and speak to people about defending gender, sexual and cultural equality and tolerance, which seem to be scarily at threat these days. All this of course with the right amount of absurdity, hilarity, passion and ham.”
The UK’s Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards has recognised DeNada’s work through three nominations over the last two years. For its 2016 awards, DeNada has been nominated for the Best Independent Company award and company dancer Marivi Da Silva received a nomination for Outstanding Female Performance: Modern for her role in Carlos Pons Guerra’s Young Man!. In 2015, Carlos Pons Guerra also received a nomination for the Best Emerging Artist award.
Da Silva will return for the 2017 tour joined by two dancers new to DeNada Dance Theatre: former Rambert dancer Antonette Dayrit (UK) and Fabio Dolce (Italy) who trained at the National Academy of Dance in Rome.