Debut: Acosta Danza
Director: Carlos Acosta Choreographers: various The Lowry, Pier 8, The Quays, Salford, 12-14 October; then Birmingham, Southampton, Brighton and Edinburgh Running time: 2hrs (including interval) ★★★
It’s a “remarkable, risky thing that Carlos Acosta has done in setting up his own company”, said Judith Mackrell in The Guardian. At The Royal Ballet, the Cuban enjoyed an “unassailable reputation” as the great male ballet dancer of his generation, with an “easy, rugged virtuosity” and an electric “stage charm”. As a director, though, Acosta is still a novice: this show, fittingly titled Debut, marks the premiere UK production from his Havana-based company, Acosta Danza. So it is a great pleasure to report, said Laura Freeman in the London Evening Standard, that the evening – a programme of five short pieces – is for the most part a triumph. “Beg, borrow or steal a ticket. Fly to Cuba if you miss them here.”
Acosta’s achievement in forging his thoroughly modern company is considerable, said Mark Monahan in The Daily Telegraph. He has taken 21 of the best dancers in Cuba, training the contemporary dancers in ballet and vice versa; plans are now afoot to bring hip-hop and flamenco into the mix. And even if the troupe’s Debut bill is “uneven, and downright eccentric in places, its sheer variety and experimental vim certainly make quite an impression”. The standout of the five is Mermaid, a “poetic and warm- spirited” creation danced by Acosta himself (still astonishingly lithe at 44) and Marta Ortega. But at least two of the pieces are best described as “curios”. Imponderable, for instance, is one of those “high-concept, prop-heavy pieces” that mostly baffles (a more fitting title might have been Impenetrable).
What’s “delightful” about the show is that the dancers “already look like a company”, said Zoe Anderson in The Independent. The evening nicely balances Cuban roots and a sense of adventure. Overall, though, said Clement Crisp in the FT, the Acosta Danza enterprise “is less sunny than we might have hoped”. Too much of the choreography here is “portentous and unrewarding”; the stage design is uninspired. Acosta has taken on a “brave project”, but its promise has yet to be fulfilled.
CD of the week Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life Dirty Hit £8.99
The Londoners’ 2015 debut My Love is Cool set the bar high, and “expectations are not just met but exceeded” on this outstanding follow-up, which ranges from punk to psychedelia with “exuberance and sly humour” (FT).