There is no one quite like Carlos Acosta. The Cuban-born dancer, like Rudolf Nureyev before him, has inspired generations of young people to become ballet dancers, and in Acosta’s case, young Black boys, in particular. He has always had the gift to light up the stage with his warmth and personal magnetism, allied to his superb dancing skills, and he is, today, perhaps the only living male ballet dancer in the United Kingdom who is a household name.
Behind Acosta’s charisma is a burning ambition to bring dance to all, both through his current role as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet and Acosta Danza, and as an ambassador for the art form. On the same day he opened his birthday celebrations – Carlos at 50 – at the Royal Opera House, the scene of many of his greatest triumphs as a performer, he also announced the launch of the global headquarters of the Acosta Dance Foundation, based in the London Borough of Woolwich, where he intends to offer high-quality dance classes to all, especially to the local community, irrespective of their social background. Like the work of Ballet Black, this is a wonderful example of rejuvenating the art form at grass-roots level, and it is Acosta’s personal attempt to help ballet, and other dance forms, become increasingly more diverse.
Carlos at 50, a programme made up of works closely associated with Acosta during his dancing career, played to a packed house on 26th July (the entire run is sold out). The audience cheered loudly as the curtain rose at the start of the evening with his appearance in George Balanchine’s Apollo. Acosta grinned with pleasure at the applause, then settled down to give a strong account of this difficult title role. His figure is as trim and muscular as ever, and if his dancing is not quite as lithe as it was when he was a younger man, it still has tremendous authority and presence. He can jump high, like a big cat, but I did wonder what kind of God his Apollo was meant to be. Acosta didn’t perform the role along the lines of a danseur noble, like the British-born Xander Parish does, nor a streetwise kid, as the great Jacques d’Amboise did with New York City Ballet during the 1950s, but more like a God who is warm, smiling, amused and delighted by female company. Dancing with him as the Muses were The Royal Ballet’s Marianela Nuñez as Terpsichore, and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Céline Gittens and Lucy Waine as Polyhymnia and Calliope, all performing the choreography with clean, strong lines.
Nuñez, a star in her own right, has a tendency to dance at slower tempi, especially in an adagio, which can sometimes make her appear unspontaneous. Whilst this was true of Apollo, it was doubly so for her later performances with Acosta in the pas de deux from Act 2 of Swan Lake and the Act 1 “Bedroom” duet from Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, in which both lacked a certain amount of momentum. Acosta, however, is an immaculate and considerate partner, and it was good to see him connect with Nuñez with such courteous care and genuine pride. He was the same with Laura Rodríguez, from Acosta Danza, in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s poignant Mermaid, in which Acosta supported and took care of an apparently intoxicated young woman holding an empty wine glass in her hand.
Appearing as guest artists were a number of dancers from Acosta Danza, the Bavarian State Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. Acosta’s nephew, Yonah, along with his British-born wife, Laurretta Summerscales, offered the audience a whizz-bang, dizzying account of the pas de deux from Le Corsaire, whilst Yaoqian Shang and Enrique Corrales displayed beautiful lines and surprising shapes in End of Time, a duet choreographed by Ben Stevenson, who played a major role in Acosta’s development as an artist early in his career. Seeing Brandon Lawrence in Valery Panov’s unintentionally corny Liebestod was a reminder of just how much we are going to miss this wonderful dancer when he leaves Birmingham Royal Ballet to join Ballett Zürich at the start of the forthcoming season.
Last but not least, in extracts from Acosta’s version of Carmen, were the excellent Acosta Danza who made much more of an impact in it than The Royal Ballet when it was first performed in 2015. Notable amongst them was Zeleidy Crespo, a fabulous artist who, with her tall, lean physique, cropped hair, and cool, sophisticated presence, was like the dance equivalent of Grace Jones. Crespo appeared with Mario Sergio Elías in a strange version of The Dying Swan that Acosta titled The Dying Swans – she in a white tutu, he just in white tights – and also in the finale to the evening, a short extract from Tocororo, in which Acosta waved goodbye to the audience, and then beckoned his three young daughters on to the stage to take a curtain call with him. The audience loved everything they saw throughout the evening, but they especially loved this particular moment.
