In ROCCO/ROCCA, the spectator takes his place around the boxing ring, where dancers become boxers. And boxers become dancers. They challenge each other with striking punches, fast footwork and virtuoso tactics. In close combat, relationships are challenged and men and women look for each other’s extremes.

The performance is based on the film by Italian director Visconti: Rocco e i suoi fratelli, a film about brotherly love and the struggle for a better life. The dancers represent sibling love in all its facets: the good and the bad, the devil and the angel, the androgynous and the incestuous. ROCCO/ROCCA is a dance performance about the physically and emotionally churning bodies of boxer and dancer.

In 2012, during the Dutch Dance Festival, ROCCO was awarded the VSCD Dance Award, the Zwaan, for ‘most impressive dance production’. Dancer Christian Guerematchi was nominated for the ‘most impressive dance performance’.

In 2015, ROCCA was presented by Ballet National de Marseille with a female cast. This international success was seen again in the Netherlands in 2022 as ROCCO/ROCCA, a performance in which gender no longer matters. Men and women are equal, also in their intense physical and emotional surrender to both desire and struggle.