Mariposa : A queer tragedy inspired by Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

Under the flickering neon lights of a distant Caribbean port, a local rent boy and a foreign sailor fall ominously in love in choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra’s inventive reimagining of Puccini’s seminal opera. DeNada Dance Theatre’s Madame Butterfly is immersed in a mist of Havana smoke, within which a young man is asked to sacrifice his gender in exchange of love and a better life.

Mariposa is an operatic dance drama that transports Puccini’s Orientalist libretto to post-revolution Cuba, to a dockland world of faded showgirls, hopeful rent boys, troubled sailors and santeria spirits. Engulfed in a tropical storm of repressed desires, this production is a passionate and deeply moving exploration of what we are ready to sacrifice in order to be loved and accepted.

Set to an original score by Spanish composer Luis Miguel Cobo, which takes its inspiration from Caribbean sounds as well as Puccini, with libretto by French- Indian writer Karthika Nair and designs by Ryan Laight, Mariposa is performed by the diverse international cast of DeNada Dance Theatre, a UK Critic’s Circle National Dance Awards nominee in the category of Best Independent Company.