Ballet superstar Carlos Acosta: ‘Dance was salvation. My life depended on it'
'Gone are the times when you used to just create for your own indulgence,' says Carlos Acosta. Now, when it comes to running a major ballet company, and keeping it afloat, 'You have to learn from your audience.' Acosta has always been a crowd-pleaser, ever since he took the top prize at the famous Prix de Lausanne competition in 1990, the auditorium erupting in cheers at the then 16-year-old Cuban's Don Quixote solo. He went on to fire up adoring audiences around the world, settling at London's Royal Ballet for 17 years, but making global guest appearances as one of the few genuine ballet superstars. He's talking to me from a very unstarry grey office in Birmingham. But even the unflattering rectangle of a video call can't dampen his crinkle-eyed smile, and down-to-earth magnetism. He's been running Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) for exactly five years, and just renewed his contract, so despite all his other projects (the Acosta Danza company in Havana and Acosta Dance Centre in Woolwich, south London, among them) he's committed to the precarious business of helping ballet thrive in the Midlands. More precarious since Birmingham City Council announced it was slashing its arts budget entirely, hence the concern with a healthy box office as well as artistic integrity.
But that needn't always mean playing it safe. Acosta has made it his business to make bold artistic choices, commissioning surprising new works and choreographers, and making headlines with the collision of heavy metal and pointe shoes that was Black Sabbath: The Ballet, which tours to the US this summer and has just announced another UK tour in 2026. He pushes his dancers to be crowdpleasers, too. 'From day one I said: 'This has to be a company of virtuosos,'' he says, looking for the kind of fireworks that make classical ballet a mainstream entertainment in his home country. 'I want personalities, 'Look at me!' – that's how I like it. I want dancers that are exceptional, and I think we are getting there.' He's right that there is great talent in the company, although I'm sad they've lost the beautiful Eric Pinto Cata to Paris Opera Ballet.
The company has just headed out on tour, dancing Cinderella. It's not the most groundbreaking of their rep, but as Acosta says, 'It's one of the most popular ballets. The version we have [by BRB's former artistic director David Bintley, from 2010] is different to any other Cinderella out there, very bold in scale, it's a really great show.' Bintley's Cinderella has inspired designs by John Macfarlane – a painterly backdrop of a starry sky and giant clockwork cogs – along with the usual comic ugly sisters, magical transformations and rogue glass slipper.
In Birmingham, they'll be staging a 'relaxed' show, for audiences with different access needs, making good on the aim of ballet being for everyone. Among other adjustments, the first act of the show will be replaced with a spoken introduction to the story, before going straight into act two. That's what I want at the ballet sometimes, I say to Acosta, just to cut to the action. 'Instead of sitting there for three hours,' he laughs, with the love of someone who has dedicated their whole life to this art form.
Ballet has given Acosta a life he could never have dreamed of, growing up in an impoverished family of 11 kids in Havana. His story's been told many times, pushed reluctantly to classes at Cuba's esteemed, state-funded National Ballet School by his truck driver dad, to keep him out of trouble. After a shaky start, Acosta knuckled down and then he soared. 'Some dancers see it as a job. Others view dance as a necessity. For me it was salvation,' says Acosta. 'My life depended on it. I was in a very bad place socially and the only way forward was to succeed at all costs. I understood that I had this talent and I began to really, really hammer it. It consumed every aspect of my life.'
The company is taking Cinderella on tour to Japan this summer, a country where Acosta has many fans. 'They absolutely love classical ballet. It's like no other place,' he says. And the fans really show their love. 'I don't know how they find out the hotel address but when you arrive everyone's waiting for you with posters and DVDs to sign and running after you. It's quite remarkable. And they give you presents – I remember a really expensive watch,' he marvels. 'So in other words, we like Japan a lot,' he smiles.
To be fair, BRB has been getting a pretty good reception at home recently (luxury watches notwithstanding) with record ticket sales for Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker. A second company of younger dancers, BRB2, is going from strength to strength. The main troupe performed on Glastonbury's Pyramid stage last year, which this newspaper said was reaching 'towards the best of what humanity can do and be'.
But in the midst of all these highs, the company has been hit by a huge emotional blow: the death of CEO Caroline Miller in December, from cancer, just before her 53rd birthday. 'It's left a void,' Acosta says, telling me he keeps expecting Miller to walk in any moment, in her blue coat, bubbling with new ideas as she always was. 'To come to terms with the fact that's not going to happen again, it's tough.' It was Miller's very savvy idea to recruit Acosta, and they made a great team. She gave him the confidence he needed to direct a company of this scale, but beyond operational expertise, 'she would fight for the art at all costs,' he says. 'And sometimes she got a lot of heat for that.'
Before going to BRB, Miller had led the industry body One Dance UK, and was well known across the dance world as an ebullient woman of unstoppable can-do spirit. 'She was an enthusiast, like I am,' Acosta says. 'I'm always dreaming the impossible, and she did as well. She would dream with me. She would never say, 'We can't do that.'' Instead she would find a way to make it happen. 'She was so positive. You would be dwelling on the negative and she'd come and say: 'Yes, but on the other hand …' and just lift you up.'
When Miller's cancer returned, she could have stepped back, Acosta says. 'She could have done without the stress. But she wanted to carry on and fight for the company. Her passion was this company; she was so proud of the dancers. Somebody like her is very rare to find.' BRB will be dedicating a gala of dances by the choreographer Frederick Ashton to Miller, at Birmingham's Symphony Hall, later this month.
Acosta and the company now have to find a way to move forward without Miller. The 2025-26 season has just been announced, and as well as the Black Sabbath tour, there'll be Acosta's own production of Don Quixote, full of sunny fun and Latin spirit, and a triple-bill of 20th-century classics. Acosta is in talks to present Kurt Jooss's classic The Green Table, from 1932, a powerful depiction of the futility of war but little seen these days. 'An entire generation of people don't know this important masterpiece exists,' he says. 'And it has this anti-war message that is very necessary at this point.'
Acosta also has something exciting brewing for later in 2026, which should appeal to fans of the classics and those hankering for something new – but that's all under wraps for now. Whether they're dancing a new creation or injecting energy into a classic, 'ballet is a living art form', says Acosta. 'Whatever we do, we have to make a difference. Caroline understood that.' • Cinderella is at the Mayflower theatre, Southampton, 8 February; touring to 29 March. Ashton Classics is at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 15 February. BRB's 2025/26 season is on sale soon.
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