the times | Thursday August 20 2020 1GT 9
arts
MATT WRITTLE/EVENING STANDARD/EYEVINE; JOHAN PERSSON; ANDREW ROSSocially distanced costumes)
returned to Cuba. What saved him
and his career was an invitation to join
Houston Ballet in 1993. His five years
in Texas gave him invaluable
experience; in 1998 he joined the
Royal Ballet, where he remained for
the next 17 years, making history as
the company’s first black principal.
On stage he exuded power and
excitement; he was graceful and
charismatic, and a wonderful partner
to such stellar ballerinas as Darcey
Bussell and Tamara Rojo. He won an
Olivier award for outstanding
achievement in dance, a prix Benois de
la danse, an outstanding achievement
award from the Critics’ Circle, and the
Queen Elizabeth II Coronation award.
In 2014 he was appointed CBE.
Now he faces probably his biggest
challenge, but he has lots of ideas up
his sleeve. Also today he’s announcing
a new commission to mark the 30th
anniversary of the company’s move to
Birmingham (it was previously based
at Sadler’s Wells in London). City of
a Thousand Trades by the Cuban
Miguel Altunaga, with music by
Mathias Coppens, will have its debut
at the Birmingham Rep in May next
year. It’s a one-act ballet — “a homage
to the city that gave so much to the
world” — celebrating the richly
diverse cultural and industrial heritage
of Birmingham.a Gathering. Completing the triple
bill is Liebestod, a solo by the Russian-
Israeli choreographer Valery Panov
to music from Wagner’s Tristan
und Isolde.
How will it actually work? In
keeping with the present guidelines,
the dancers have been training in
bubbles; classes are streamed into
neighbouring studios so that they canall participate at the same time. As for
the audience, there will be 200 tickets
on sale for each of the four shows at
the Rep (which normally seats 1,000).
Family groups will be able to sit
together, but will be protected by
having the neighbouring seats taken
out of commission. A few days later
the show will head to Sadler’s Wells
in London. How the theatres manage
audiences — and whether they will
have to wear masks — will be up to
the venues in light of the governmentadvice at the time. For those unable
to see BRB in person, the Birmingham
Rep performance will be filmed
for broadcast via pay-per-view
in November.
Acosta is hoping that such ticketed
streaming events will help to enhance
the company’s international
reputation. “The pandemic has
accelerated the need for digital
streaming. We have to use this
experience to give ourselves a more
robust presence digitally. It would
allow us to amplify our reach and
possibly our income as well.”
Today’s announcement reflects the
can-do spirit of Britain’s newest ballet
director, a man whose career as a
dancer was a case of triumph over
adversity. Acosta was born in Havana
in 1973, the youngest of 11 children.
The family struggled to put food on
the table; his lorry-driver father was
violent and abusive; young Acosta was
rebellious and out of control. He wrote
about his childhood struggles in his
autobiography No Way Home; last
year it inspired the poignant film Yuli.
Ballet school — free in Castro’s Cuba
— was his salvation and he proved to
have enormous talent.
At 16, he won the Prix de Lausanne.
In 1990 he joined English National
Ballet and moved to London, but
injury cut short his prospects and heAnd what of BRB’s fine stable of
full-length classical ballets? Acosta
is hoping that the company’s
all-important Nutcracker — a fixture
at Christmas — will be good to go in
December. “We are still working to see
if we can deliver The Nutcracker in one
hour and 20 minutes with no interval
to reduce the risks for the audience.
We are in conversation with the
Arena Birmingham and the Royal
Albert Hall in London. We are really
committed to making it happen.”
He also plans to revive Cinderella,
created by his predecessor David
Bintley to Prokofiev’s lush score, for a
tour in February. It will also be
streamed on August 25. As for the
company premiere of Acosta’s
exuberant Don Quixote, that has been
put back to the spring of 2022.
Acosta’s problem, like that of his
fellow directors, is uncertainty. “Not
knowing has been a factor that has hit
us terribly. I wish the government had
been listening more to what the
cultural sector was saying, but then
again I can see this situation is
unprecedented and you can only do
your best.”
As for the bailout package
announced by the government in July,
it’s great news, says Caroline Miller,
BRB’s chief executive, who along with
Acosta has taken a pay cut. “Arts
Council funding, government support
through the furlough scheme and the
fact that we don’t have to run a large
building mean that BRB is not at
present at imminent risk of collapse,”
she says.
“But looking to the future, our
financial position is very serious
because our important partner
theatres and venues remain closed or
only open to socially distanced
audiences. That is why we are
applying to the government’s Culture
Recovery Fund this week, which is a
lifeline for the entire entertainment
and culture industry.”
Meanwhile, there has been an
upside to lockdown in Somerset,
where the Acosta household is based.
It has allowed him to spend quality
time with his wife, Charlotte, and their
three daughters — the twins, Maya
and Luna, turn four today, his eldest,
Aila, is eight.
“Before lockdown I was on tour with
Acosta Danza, my Cuban company,
and constantly going back and forth to
Birmingham. I wasn’t spending as
much time with them as I would have
liked. So lockdown has been great for
family togetherness. I love spending
time in the garden with them. It’s been
a gorgeous summer in Somerset.”Birmingham Royal
Ballet is at Birmingham
Rep (birmingham-
rep.co.uk) Oct 22-
and Sadler’s Wells
(sadlerswells.com)
Oct 29-31. Cinderella
will be streamed at 7pm
on Tuesday and
available for seven days
after that at brb.org.uk/
watch-cinderellaDoing class is not
enough; dancers
need to train
towards an end
Left: Carlos Acosta in A dwhatofBRB’sfinestableof
Don Quixote with the
Royal Ballet in 2013
and, far left, today, with
Samuel Wyer’s costume
designs for Lazuli Sky.
Above: Birmingham
Royal Ballet in The
Nutcracker