8 1GT Thursday August 20 2020 | the times

arts

I’m bringing ballet back (with s

Artistic director Carlos Acosta

tells Debra Craine about his

plans for Birmingham Royal

Ballet’s new season, to be

performed before a live audience

W

hen Carlos

Acosta took

over as

artistic

director of

Birmingham

Royal Ballet

in January

he was full of beans, and full of plans.

He had curated a three-week summer

festival in Birmingham and London in

June, highlights of which included a

new duet for himself and the ballerina

Alessandra Ferri and his own vibrant

production of Don Quixote, which he

had made for Covent Garden in 2013

and was bringing to Birmingham as a

kind of welcoming gift. But, of course,

Covid-19 put paid to all that.

“Oh yes, it came as a big shock,”

Acosta says to me, speaking on the

phone from his office in Birmingham.

“I had all these plans and everything

was going fine, and then all of a

sudden this happened and

I had to adapt to the

circumstances. We went from

plan A to plan B to plan C,

and now we are on plan

whatever. It’s been a real

headache, but at least we now

have a plan that’s totally

feasible, and I’m very pleased

about that.”

As well he may be. Acosta is

the first ballet director in the

country to announce any kind

of performance plans for the

rest of this year. While others

were still reeling from the

closure of theatres, the 47-

year-old Cuban superstar was

busy figuring out how to keep his

dancers dancing and his musicians

playing in front of a live audience now

that the government has relaxed the

ban on indoor performance — with

social distancing in place, of course.

Today he announces a programme

for the autumn — including a world

premiere ballet from the British

choreographer Will Tuckett inspired

by the pandemic — and a new

relationship with the Birmingham Rep,

a theatre with about half the seating

capacity of BRB’s regular performance

perch at the Hippodrome, yet with a

stage big enough for dance.

“Particularly now, in order to

survive and thrive, the arts must find

new and inventive ways to collaborate

and create new works,” says Sean

Foley, the artistic director of

Birmingham Rep. “We have really

good connections with local arts hubs

and a network of incredibly talented

creatives and practitioners. Combine

this with Birmingham Royal Ballet’s

reputation for world-class ballet,

and we can look to re-establish

Birmingham as the very best city for

theatre, dance and the creative arts.”

For Acosta, it was vital that

something was done to get his artists

back to work and this new partnership

eased the way. “It’s been very hard on

dancers and musicians who couldn’t

perform, especially when the first

couple of weeks turned into months,”

he says. “I was very concerned about

the psychology of the company. What

would it mean if we could go an entire

year without performing? It was a very

daunting and worrying prospect.

“As a dancer, if you take one month

off that has a big impact on your body,

and to recover those faculties takes a

long time. Doing class is not enough;

dancers need to train towards an end.

If the only thing you have to look

forward to is the daily ballet class, you

quickly become discouraged.”

Now, it would seem, his dancers

have more to look forward to than any

others in the country. The highlight of

the autumn triple bill is Lazuli Sky,

Tuckett’s ballet set to music by John

Adams (his Shaker Loops will be

played live by the Royal Ballet

Sinfonia), which sets out to reflect

the reality of the global pandemic

without being downbeat. Lazuli Sky —

the title is a reference to our tendency

to appreciate nature more during

lockdown — uses architectural

costumes that “socially distance” the

12 dancers (the skirts are 2m long),

projections that interact with the

dance and “an environmental set

design that allows the audience to

immerse themselves fully in the live

theatrical experience”.

“I was very interested in leaving

behind a record of the historic time

we are living in,” Acosta says. “In 20

years we will look back at what we did

in response to the pandemic, how we

reinvented ourselves and how we

were forced to think differently. Will

Tuckett is always trying to find new

ways of delivering things. He’s very

interested in exploring technology.

“Traditional ballet is the essence of

why we exist, but at the same time we

have to go forward and reflect more

the time we are living in, which is a

time shaped by technology.”

Also on the same bill is Our Waltzes

by the Venezuelan choreographer

Vicente Nebrada. A 1970s creation for

ten dancers, it’s likened by Acosta to

Jerome Robbins’s romantic Dances at

s