A dance rewritten by the body, breathing new life into a fading tradition eroded by the weight of time

<Save the Last Dance for Me> is a piece by Alessandro Sciarroni, created to revive Polka Chinata, an old courting dance from the Bologna region of Italy. Originally performed exclusively by men in the early 20th century, Polka Chinata is characterized by its dynamic and intense, almost acrobatic movements—two dancers hold each other tightly while bending their knees nearly to the ground and spinning together.

In 2018, Sciarroni discovered that only five dancers in all of Italy were still practicing the dance. To breathe life back into this tradition on the verge of extinction, he launched a project dedicated to its preservation and revival. This piece was created in close collaboration with Giancarlo Stagni, a dance master who had brought Polka Chinata back to life using archival footage from the 1960s. This piece was driven by a genuine dedication to breathing new life into fading intangible cultural heritage through a contemporary artistic language.

The result is a captivating performance in which Gianmaria Borzillo and Giovanfrancesco Giannini move in perfect unison as they channel the spirit of tradition with striking vividness.

<Save the Last Dance for Me> asks a simple yet urgent question: How do we pass this dance on to the next generation? Like a lifeline connecting us to the breath of culture, it lingers gently in our hearts.