“I wish to make it snow in Havana,” mentioned Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta as he introduced a brand new model of ballet’s favorite frosty Christmas present The Nutcracker on Monday. Nutcracker in Havana will weave conventional Cuban rhythms and dances along with classical ballet, all set to a revised model of Tchaikovsky’s well-known musical rating by Cuban composer Pepe Gavilondo.
Having grown up in Havana underneath Fidel Castro, who successfully banned Christmas, Acosta didn’t have a good time it till he left the island to hitch Houston Ballet in 1993, aged 20. He was staying with the corporate’s director when he got here house sooner or later to discover a big tree in the lounge. “I mentioned, this man has gone mad! What’s he doing planting a tree in the lounge?!” However over Acosta’s 17 years dancing with the Royal Ballet in London, he got here to like the annual festivities. “It’s a stunning interval of bringing everybody collectively,” he mentioned. “I wish to give my nation that type of expertise.”
In Acosta’s imaginative and prescient, the story of Clara, an enchanted Nutcracker doll and their journey via a magical land of desires, will tackle a Cuban accent. Clara’s humble picket house is reworked right into a Nineteen Forties-style Havana ballroom, the Nutcracker doll turns into a mambi – one of many troopers who fought in opposition to Spain within the Cuban struggle of independence – and the toy involves life within the form of Yoruba gods and goddesses. The present could have video projection and set design by Nina Dunn.
The forged of 21 come from Acosta’s Havana-based firm, Acosta Danza. The premiere will happen at Norwich Theatre Royal on 1 November, earlier than a UK tour. “You wouldn’t consider Norfolk as a house for Cuban dance, but it surely’s usually good to shock,” mentioned Stephen Crocker, CEO of Norwich Theatres, co-producer of Nutcracker in Havana. “Carlos is so inspirational to work with.”
The Nutcracker is a stalwart of the ballet repertoire, usually counting for half of an organization’s takings for the yr, mentioned Acosta. However the perfect productions are likely to do lengthy runs in single giant theatres. In step with Acosta’s mission to open dance as much as broader audiences, the purpose is to make a manufacturing that may simply go on tour however is “nonetheless as magical”.
One of many biggest ballet dancers of his era, Havana-born Acosta, 50, retired from the Royal Ballet in 2015, arrange Acosta Danza in 2016, and since 2020 has been inventive director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, the place commissions akin to Black Sabbath: The Ballet have caught the creativeness of dance followers and newcomers alike. His many different initiatives embody choreography, movies, books, and a dance academy in Havana. In 2023 he opened the Acosta Dance Centre in Woolwich, south-east London, web site of the previous Royal Arsenal. And but nonetheless he finds time to make a brand new large-scale, full-evening ballet on prime of the whole lot else. “I simply must be continuously creating,” mentioned Acosta. “Then if you see a end result, it’s an important feeling, a sense I crave. It’s annoying however if you do one thing recent and new for a brand new viewers, it’s wonderful. You assume: I would like that once more.”
