Nuno Silva Takes A DARKER SHADE OF FADO on Tour, Beg. Today

NUNO SILVA is a highly individual artist whose career spans contemporary dance, classical opera, fado singing and West End musicals. Known to dance audiences for his muscular physicality and fine fado singing - particularly as the prodigal son in Arthur Pita's 'God's Garden' - and to West End audiences from his dazzling performance in 'Cabaret' at the Savoy Theatre and his inventive, physical theatre role in 'The Light Princess' at the National Theatre, Nuno returns to his first love, the fado music of Portugal in his own show A Darker Shade of Fado which kicks off a UK tour at the Lighthouse in Poole today, April 26th.

A Darker Shade of Fado brings together an international team of dancers and musicians and promises to hold audiences enthralled with a compelling blend of sensual dance and soul-baring song. Leading an outstanding cast, Nuno draws on the traditions of his Portuguese roots to evoke the magic of Lisbon's historical old quarters using live music and song, an absorbing story of love and jealousy, contemporary choreography and an enveloping, mystical atmosphere...

A Darker Shade of Fado tour dates:

April 26th - Poole Lighthouse www.lighthousepoole.co.uk
April 29th - Nottingham Lakeside Arts Centre www.lakesidearts.org.uk
*May 1st - London, Artsdepot www.artsdepot.co.uk
May 2nd - Bracknel South Hill Park www.southhillpark.org.uk
May 9th - Ipswich Jerwood DanceHouse www.danceeast.co.uk/dancehouse
*May 16th - London, Greenwich Dance www.greenwichdance.org.uk
May 18th - Kingston Rose Theatre www.rosetheatrekingston.org
June 19th - Kendal Brewery Arts Centre www.breweryarts.co.uk
June 25th - Scarborough YMCA Theatre www.scarborough.ymca.org.uk

Featuring Music by Abel Arez, Lighting by Guy Hoare, Costumes by Yann Seabra, and Choreography by Dam Van Huynh. Performers: Nuno Silva, Matt Lackford, Stephanie Dufresne and Sabio Janiak.

A Darker Shade of Fado fuses contemporary dance and music with fado music. It's a tale of love using the magic of music, dance, and contemporary choreography. FADO is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal although its origins remain a mystery. Popularly fado is a form of music characterised by haunting melodies and passionate expression and was adopted by the bourgeois literati with the advent of Romanticism in Europe. Today it's still sung in the old quarters of Lisbon and has recently been recognised by UNESCO as a World's Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Adds Nuno: "The traditional form of fado has one singer, one Portuguese-guitar guitarist and one classical Spanish-guitar guitarist. In Portugal we associate fado with the past and the hardships of life and love and this is what A Darker Shade of Fado is about. Fado is often sung in taverns and bars and anyone who wishes to sing it can do so (most times you have to tell the owner which fados you want to sing so he/she can write them down on a notebook for the guitarists at the start of the evening)."

NUNO SILVA -- Since graduating from LSC in 2000 where Nuno was part of Intoto, Nuno's career in performance and choreography has taken him from classical opera to contemporary dance to the West End, working with Javier de Frutos, Frantic Assembly, Will Tuckett, bGroup, Russell Maliphant, Protein Dance, Kerry Nicholls, Fin Walker, Henri Oguike, Jasmin Vardimon, the Royal Opera House, ENO, Cork Opera, performing the role of the EmmCee in Rufus Norris's West End production of Cabaret and, more recently, the National Theatre's award-winning The Light Princess, in which he was Dance Captain and an acrobat.

In 2010 Nuno was recognised in the National Dance Awards with a nomination for Best Male Performer, for his role in Arthur Pita's God's Garden, about which the Observer wrote: "Is there no end to Nuno Silva's talents?... the fado lamentations weave through the piece like an uneasy, late-evening breeze".

Visit Nuno's YouTube channel here to see a trailer of the show.