Carlos Acosta, A Celebration of Thirty Years In Dance

Carlos Acosta: A Celebration of Thirty Years in Dance, Royal Albert Hall, October 2

Carlos Acosta with Acosta Danza (photo: Manuel Vasson)

There’s a lot to celebrate in what Carlos Acosta has to show for his 30 years in dance, not least his ploughing of the benefits he received as a young dancer back into the rich soil of Cuba in the form of a company, Acosta Danza, and a dance academy in Havana that opened last year. For those who want to see Acosta himself in action he is still in fine and seemingly effortless form and worth watching. It is the package in which this 30-year celebration is presented at the Royal Albert Hall that leaves something to be desired and a few questions. The celebration has the feel of a public relations event in the form of a performance rather than the other way round; Acosta is essentially a guest artist in his own company and is the focus of the evening.

One of the valuable decisions is to present Acosta Danza on its own merits in Alrededor no hay nada with choreography by Goyo Montero to recorded poems by Joaquin Sabina and Vinicius de Moraes. Although there is no printed translation of the poems, their rhythmic structure and the sound of the syllables are beautifully embodied in the choreography and in the elegant, pliant athleticism of the dancers. Each poem is treated as a separate movement within the whole, generating cohesive, often humorous choreographic miniatures in which the contrasts of everyday life in Havana find their expression; they seem to breathe with the sound and colour, exuberance and violence, joy and sadness of the city.

The evening opens with a Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui duet, Mermaid, to a score by Cherkaoui and Woojae Park played live on bells, geomungo and piano. The association of Acosta and Cherkaoui is not immediately evident; there is a connection through the Sadler’s Wells roster of associates but watching Acosta dance this duet is to sense a fish out of water, whereas the fluid Marta Ortega as the mermaid, even on pointe, is much more within her realm.

The final work on the first part of the program is Christopher Bruce’s Rooster choreographed on iconic songs of the Rolling Stones. Bruce writes, ‘In my teens I lived with these songs. I have taken eight tracks and linked them with themes present in the lyrics.’ As with Alrededor no hay nada, there are no printed lyrics but the punchy rhythms and inspired instrumentation (this was before the death of Brian Jones) are all you need to conjure up the cocky chauvinism of the greased-back rockers who strut their stuff in front of an acquiescent female gaze. And yet in this performance, with Acosta as chief rooster, something has got lost in translation. It starts with Tina MacHugh’s lighting whose original intensity and colour seems to have been filtered through a kind of purple haze which also affects the appearance of Marian Bruce’s costumes: they lose their punch. And for a choreographic treatment that bounces off the walls, there aren’t any walls to bounce off in the airy space of the Royal Albert Hall stage so the energy dissipates. That leaves the best efforts of the dancers to rescue Rooster but here again the accuracy of Bruce’s playful, extrovert gestures and attitudes is little more than an approximation; the men are cocks but not cocky and even the charisma of Acosta becomes an apology for self-assertion. Rooster deserves better.

The second half of the program is the complete Carmen as conceived and choreographed by Acosta to the arrangement by Rodion Shchedrin of Bizet’s score with additional music by Martin Yates. The orchestra under the baton of Paul Murphy is perched high above and to the left of the stage. Although the choreography is uneven in its disparate influences, it suits the company well. With Laura Rodriguez as Carmen and Javier Rojas as Don José the narrative line never falters and Acosta’s presence as Escamillio does not overshadow them. Rodriguez moulds her prodigious technique to express the willfulness, seduction and scorn in the choreography, while Rojas maintains a youthful naivety whose burgeoning passion is drawn to his murderous solution by forces he cannot control. Acosta’s suave Escamillio borrows more from the Royal Ballet than from the bullring, but in Carlos Luis Blanco as the embodiment of a bull the raw, earthy masculinity of Carmen’s macho narrative is complete. In its strong, percussive ensemble work and convincing characters Carmen gives the company a chance to cut their technical teeth on a dramatic narrative, a process Acosta can pass on to his dancers with the authority of experience. That is worth celebrating.