Press
(For press enquiries, please contact our Media and PR Manager, Simon Harper PR at simonharperpr@gmail.com)
Praise for TORO: Beauty and the Bull
★★★★ Financial Times
★★★★ The Observer
★★★★ The Stage
★★★★ Dance Tabs
“Dazzling imagery and innovative movement” Financial Times (Full article)
“Extraordinary poignancy” The Observer (Full article)
“Unbound eroticism and dynamite dancing” The Guardian (Full article)
“Sensual and provocative” The Stage (Full article)
“Fascinating” DanceTabs (Full article)
“Highly erotic and spiritual” Dance Europe
“Stylishly staged and superlatively danced” Financial Times
“It’s witty, it’s penetrating, and it’s personal” The Observer
“Luxuriously decadent” The Wonderful World of Dance
“An urgent comment on society” The Stage
“Ultra-stylish, sensorial and sensual” DanceTabs
“Fantastical, camp and beautiful” The Wonderful World of Dance
Praise for Ham and Passion
"Perverse, sexy and flamboyant" The Observer
★★★★ The Stage
"Luridly funny" The Guardian
"Extraordinarily powerful" Dance Europe
"Sensuous precision" The Independent
"Thematically bold, theatrically vivid" Dancing Times
"Audacious, funny, nostalgic" London Evening Standard
"Extreme passion and florid sexuality" The Stage
"Curiously subversive" Dance Europe
"Absurd as it is perverse" The Observer
"Clever, sexy, poignant" Londondance.com
Praise for Carlos Pons Guerra
"Choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra may be early in his career, but he's arrived with a fully formed sense of artistic identity. His Spanish heritage, steeped in Catholicism, cured ham and songs of the 1950s, collides with explorations of sexuality, gender and copious carnal pleasure. It's a hugely atmospheric recipe." London Evening Standard
"Pons Guerra is a choreographer of innate intelligence and theatricality, driven instinctively to goad and stimulate the audience." Dance Europe
“Like so many successful director/choreographers specialising in dance theatre (think Matthew Bourne, Mark Bruce, Anabelle Lopez Ochoa and Arthur Pita as a quartet of examples), Pons Guerra is establishing a popular profile by developing his own distinctive approach. His work is ultra-stylish, sensorial, sensual and layered with a rich patina comprising vintage Hispanic music, often of Latin American origin, and striking designs to evoke settings that are invariably historic but sit somewhere between reality and fantasy.” DanceTabs
"The dance world is becoming increasingly aware of the talent of Carlos Pons
Guerra. Daring, audacious, sublimely and rioutously funny, he has found a style
and dancers to match." The Stage interviews Pons Guerra for its Show People
section (Full interview)
“Pons Guerra is a dancer/maker who will soon be making his mark” Dancing Times
"Pons Guerra is a choreographer who is well on the way to finding his own voice and shaping a reputation." The Stage
Audience Feedback
“The bill is dangerous and fascinating and mirroring the real world at the moment as we struggle for our identity and sexual needs and desires. O Maria was shocking and seemingly blasphemous as well as gentle and loving - and funny too! What you can do with a leg of ham!”
Patricia Doyle, theatre director
“Gender bending blasphemous fabulousness. Plus Mary dancing like Martha. Winner. Well done all of you!”
Valentina Golfieri, dancer, choreographer and designer.
“Canarian choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra fascinates the UK. Ham and Passion starts its tour in the spectacular Wilton’s Music Hall.”
Ainhoa Paredes, London correspondent, Telecinco News.
“Debauchery of creativity thanks to a leg of ham, all in Ham and Passion, by choreographer Carlos Pons Guerra.”
Rita A. Tudela, photo journalist, The Voice of Galicia
“Great show by DeNada at Wilton’s Music Hall. Really powerful, provocative and a little disturbing!(In a good way). Congrats Carlos Pons Guerra”
Toby Batley, dancer
“Congrats on Ham and Passion, DeNada- Spanish music with very edgy church choreography- taking risks in dance.”
Claudia Redmond, broadcast journalist
“More fight-flirt dancing on our stage please! A beautiful tribute to the bravery of drag queens in Civil War Spain!”
Amy Wilx
“Unmissable”
Theatre Bench
“This was wonderful last night. Absurdist, anarchic, angst-filled dance from a brilliant Spanish company. Dressed to the nines by Ryan Laight.”
Alan Turkington
“Loved DeNada’s Ham and passion in the beautiful setting of Wilton’s Music Hall, featuring stunning performances from a leg of ham and the three dancers. So great”
Bella Eacott
“What a fabulous evening. Loved and was obsessed with the handography! Bravo”
Saba Ali
“Last night, Ham & Passion at Wiltons. Dance needs more gender-swapped, boundary pushing, provocative...whatever it was, with sequins. So bold and assured. Really grabs you by the salamis…Carlos Pons Guerra is, for sure, a twisted, mad, sorcerer of a choreographer”
Hannah Young
“Just one word for tonight’s performance of DeNada’s Ham and Passion: INCREDIBLE. Thank you Carlos Pons Guerra and cast for such a beautiful piece.”
Cygnet Theatre
“Beautiful work- dark, funny and very visual!”
Maria Falconer, photographer
“Intricate, tender, playful, poignant. Ham and Passion did not disappoint tonight. Outstanding.”
Marina O’Shea, writer and actor
“Great evening out. Get tickets while you can”
Bob O’Dwyer
"Passionate, fearless, knowledgeable yet original in its fusion of styles, conceptually ambitious yet intelligible. The most daring offering of the evening." Alberto Fernández Carbajal, Teaching Fellow in Postcolonial Literature, University of Leicester, about Les Folles