Carlos Acosta on tour in United Kingdom with the show On Before

July 25, 2021

There is so much love for Carlos Acosta that a mixed program becomes something more than the sum of its parts, while Rambert's brilliant virtual beauty is full of interest.

Carlos Acosta is 48 years old. He is the director not of one but of two companies: Birmingham Royal Ballet and Acosta Danza, based in Cuba, his native land. He has fought to keep both afloat through the pandemic. He must be exhausted. Why on earth would he want to return to the stage, in a small-scale touring show for him and Cuban dancer Laura Rodríguez?

He says it's because he needs to dance. "I miss it," he adds. What became clear, at the premiere at the Norwich Theatre Royal (which coproduces the show), is how much the audience misses him. They seemed to wrap him in their arms, in a response that had such intensity that it made the evening feel like more than the sum of its parts.

In truth, On Before, an adaptation of an 80-minute program created by Acosta in 2010, is a rather cumbersome acronym: nine disparate pieces united in a trajectory that moves from life's complexities toward death. It contains two outstanding solos. In Russell Maliphant Two, a piece made famous by Sylvie Guillem, Acosta brings different qualities, sharp and sculptural, savoring every detail of the movement, confined in a square of light. Rodríguez, an agile and appealing dancer, has her best moment in Footnote to Ashton, lending weight to the grave lyricism of Kim Brandstrup's choreography as she moves within a frame of candles.

There is also Nosotros, a new duet by Raúl Reinoso, which helps tie the evening together as a study of the messiness of human relationships. His steps are perfectly tuned to showcase both dancers, using their intrinsic classicism, as in Will Tuckett's On Before, which opens the night, but letting it flow toward more contemporary movements. Acosta looks in good physical shape, and Rodríguez matches him equally in style and presence, which is no small achievement.

At the end, the chorus that has awkwardly entered and exited the stage to fill time during the pauses between pieces finally begins to sing, intoning Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium, full of grief, while Acosta is in mourning. He conceived the evening just after his mother's death; the enthusiastic reception confirmed the way it strikes a perfectly poignant and melancholic chord in our own strange times.

Meanwhile, Rambert has continued with its pandemic policy of creating new works for online audiences in its Summer Livestream. Eye Candy, a world premiere by brothers Imre and Marne van Opstal, presents their own brilliant design, which places dancers in latex breasts that make them look naked.

It is a magnificent concept for a piece that examines attitudes toward the body and the taboos surrounding it, especially when the latex becomes disconcertingly wrinkled and sweaty. The choreography is also interesting, full of images of oppression and Bosch-like threat interspersed with more tender moments that culminate in a tentative note of hope.

As for Marion Motin's Rouge, remade for film, well that is just an explosion. The choreographer, who became famous with Christine and the Queens, has Rambert's brilliant dancers posing to the beat of Micka Luna's strong rhythms. With clashing heads, slender hips, and the occasional hint of a smile, it is sweaty, sexy, and intense, and totally fabulous.