Carlos Acosta: On Before - Review

Post

Subscribe

Mon 06 May 2024

With Carlos Acosta now known to Birmingham audiences as the director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, it could be easy to forget his skill as a dancer. This performance at Birmingham Hippodrome brings his talent back into the spotlight.

Together with Laura Rodríguez, he takes to the stage in a production very close to his heart. Originally created in 2010, On Before is a tribute to his mother, who encouraged Acosta in his dancing career.

The work isn’t about Acosta’s family or his story but instead focuses on a failing love affair between two people. Shown through nine dances, with different choreographers, the pieces are distinct and yet hold together with both movement and themes underscored in each.



On Before features a host of leading contemporary choreographers with Russell Maliphant, Will Tuckett, Kim Brandstrup, George Céspedes, Miguel Altunaga, Yury Yanowsky, Acosta, Raúl Reinoso and Beatriz García all featured.

So too the music is diverse ranging from Handel through to modern Cuban rhythms and concluding with Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium performed live on stage by Birmingham’s Ex Cathedra choir.

The production is minimalist with little staging, black and white costumes and strong lighting which picks out the details as Acosta and Rodríguez dance, highlighting their bodies as they move against a dark background.

The production begins with Tuckett’s On Before which was originally created for the BalletBoyz but has been reworked for this show. Here we see Acosta and Rodríguez exploring their relationship and from this beginning, we feel both the attraction and rejection the couple are experiencing.

This is followed by a series of solos which demand intense precision and fluidity from both dancers.

The final piece before the interval, Maliphant’s Two, was originally choreographed on Sylvie Guillem and has been remodelled to stunning effect on a male dancer. Acosta moves so rapidly and expertly seems to be trailing light behind him, a mesmerizing performance.

Brandstrup’s Footnote to Ashton sees Rodríguez on a stage filled with flickering candles, in a piece which was inspired by the classic choreography of Sir Frederick Ashton and yet brings the essence of Ashton’s work into a more contemporary setting.

The production also features a slow-motion film with Acosta and Rodríguez dancing in sync but also in physical conflict. Filling the stage, the film concentrates our focus on the bodies of the dancers in close-ups.

García and Reinoso’s Nosotros is a new addition to the work. Spanish for ‘we’ and ‘us’, it joins the couple as a single unit but this unit is clearly fragmenting. Alongside the love and the tenderness, there is also anger, frustration and hurt.



When Ex Cathedra choir perform O Magnum Mysterium they bring us back to the idea of the love of a mother and child as the text of Lauridsen’s haunting work is based on the Latin Christmas Matins.

Up to this point, the choir have been used as a link between pieces, not singing but walking around the stage in a way which appears curiously uncoordinated and adds little to the production. They are certainly better placed when singing with a beautiful conclusion to the work.

Birmingham has welcomed Acosta with open arms and with On Before, it is a treat to have him back on stage performing.

#dance
#theatre
#reviews
#arts_culture
%wnbirmingham