Save the Last Dance for Me (Leichhardt Town Hall)

Name: Save the Last Dance for Me (Leichhardt Town Hall)
Start: 2026-01-22 16:00:00+11:00
End: 2026-01-23 10:00:00+11:00
Location: Leichhardt Town Hall

Alessandro Sciarroni

Italy

An Italian spin on love and desire.

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Description

Australian Exclusive

Knees bent low. Arms locked tight. Two bodies spinning faster, faster, faster. This is the polka chinata, a breathtaking dance ritual almost lost to history. Dating back to the early 1900s, it was once a courtship display performed only by men at a time when strict rules forbade unmarried men and women from dancing together. The result? A polka unlike any other – a passionate acrobatic whirl designed to dazzle those looking for love from the edge of the dance floor.   

By 2018, few still remembered the steps, but when Alessandro Sciarroni – one of Europe’s most daring contemporary artists – was alerted to this endangered form, he fell under its spell. With the help of dance master Giancarlo Stagni, he began a project that would both preserve and renew it.

Performed with astonishing physical and emotional intensity by Gianmaria Borzillo and Giovanfrancesco Giannini, the work honours the polka chinata’s origins while transforming it into something contemporary, a thrilling exploration of strength, tenderness and trust. What was once a show of masculine virility becomes, in these dancers’ hands, a celebration of intimacy between men, of endurance, of love.

This performance is happening in three locations around Sydney – you can also:

See Save the Last Dance for Me at Sydney Town Hall.

See Save the Last Dance for Me at Dancers' Alley.

“At the end... everyone wanted to go outside and fall in love with someone.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

“When the piano dropped onto the beat along with the first smile on [the dancers’] faces, the moment hit me so hard I teared up..."

THE THEATRE TIMES

Dance

Alessandro Sciarroni

Italy

Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist active in the field of Performing Arts with several years of experience in visual arts and theater research. His work starts from a conceptual Duchamp-like matrix using a theatrical framework and is featured in festivals, museums and unconventional spaces, across Europe, South and North America and Asia. In his creations he involves professionals from different disciplines and uses some techniques and experiences from dance, as well as circus or sports. His work tries to uncover obsessions, fears and fragilities of the act of performing, through the repetition of a practice to the limits of the physical endurance of the interpreters, looking at a different dimension of time, and to an empathic relationship between the audience and the performers. In 2019 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance by the Venice Biennial. Alessandro Scarroni is associate artist of MARCHE TEATRO.

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