CriticalDance Forum

For release: 20 May 2003

CUBAN BALLET STAR BRINGS LATIN HEAT TO LONDON

CARLOS ACOSTA presents
Tocororo - A Cuban Tale
Sadler's Wells
Tuesday 15 - Saturday 26 July at 7.30pm & Saturday 19 & 26 July at 2.30pm
Tickets £10 - £35. Ticket Office 020 7863 8000 www.sadlerswells.com
Post performance talk: Talking Dance, Thursday 17 July, with Carlos Acosta

Carlos Acosta, Cuba's breathtaking ballet star, presents his choreographic debut, Tocororo - A Cuban Tale, at Sadler's Wells from 15 - 26 July. Tocororo is a summer extravaganza blending the vibrancy of Cuban dance and music with classical ballet.

Carlos Acosta leads and choreographs seventeen dancers handpicked from the main Cuban dance companies Danza Contemporanea, the Cuban National Ballet and the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional. Tocororo is set to an original score specially composed by Miguel Núñez mixing Cuban popular and symphonic styles performed on stage by five Cuban musicians.

Tocororo tells the story of a humble boy who leaves his family and the traditions of the Cuban countryside for an urban future. Loosely based on Acosta's own life story, the young protagonist is played by his 13-year old nephew Yonah Acosta.

Carlos Acosta is the youngest of eleven children. His father was a truck driver. In a bid to save the young boy from a life of gangs and petty crime his father sent him to ballet school when he was ten. Acosta hated ballet school and was expelled twice, but at age 13 he saw the National Ballet of Cuba perform and vowed to become a great dancer. In 1990 at the age of 16 he won the Gold Medal at the prestigious ballet competition the Prix de Lausanne and went on to guest with the Bolshoi in Moscow. Since then he has won critical acclaim and legions of fans dancing with the English National Ballet, Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Today, he is a guest principal for the Royal Ballet.

Carlos Acosta is acknowledged globally as one of the finest dancers of his generation and he displays an astonishing combination of technical virtuosity and raw athleticism. Tocororo combines Acosta's talent as a dancer and choreographer to bring the culture and colour of Cuba to London. Tocororo - A Cuban Tale premièred in Havana in February this year and was attended by Fidel Castro.

Note to editors

Carlos Acosta's life story and the creation and première of Tocororo in Cuba and the UK are the subject of a BBC documentary scheduled for July on BBC One. The documentary, Carlos Acosta: The Reluctant Ballet Dancer, is part of BBC One's new arts strand Imagine.

Tocororo features a 1950s Chevrolet courtesy of Havana Club, the authentic rum of Cuba.

Tocororo is the name of the lead character in the show played by Yonah Acosta and Carlos Acosta. Tocororo is also the name of the national bird of Cuba.

Tocororo - A Cuban Tale is supported by The Times Arts First and Havana Club.

<small>[ 19 June 2003, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Yeah! I will be a London for a couple of nights and already have tickets to see this ! I will apologize now for my upcomng london dance questions, pre performance pub questions etc .

Matthew - ask away....

Leap of faith
As a tearaway in Havana, Carlos Acosta faced a momentous decision: breakdancing or ballet? He tells all to Judith Mackrell in The Guardian

Carlos Acosta is exhausted. A huge yawn splits his face, his corkscrew curls look limp and his spine, so radiantly upright on stage, sags. It's not surprising: the Cuban dancer barely has a free day during his current stint at the Royal Opera House, and when he leaves London it is to tour internationally. When I ask Acosta where he considers his home to be, the 30-year-old answers despairingly: "In the airports."

He becomes immediately alert and cheery, however, when I show him a sheaf of photos, taken in Havana, of his family and the premiere of his new show, Tocororo.

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<small>[ 20 June 2003, 01:07 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

The talent that knows no barrios
Native Cuban Carlos Acosta has turned his amazing life story into a ballet. By Debra Craine for The Times.


CARLOS ACOSTA’s life is a miracle. He really believes that. And looking around the crumbling façades of old Havana you believe it too. The humid streets are full of lolling young men eyeing up tourists, going nowhere. And Acosta, Cuban ballet superstar, could easily have been one of them, if not for a chance decision by his truck driver father to send the nine-year-old Carlos to ballet school.

It was 1982 and Acosta Sr had never seen a ballet in his life.

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The breakdancer who became a prince
Carlos Acosta is the one-time delinquent Cuban street kid whose rise to ballet stardom has stunned the world – and there are plenty more where he came from. He talks to Ismene Brown for The Daily Telegraph.


Under the swaying shade of pines lining a hot Havana street, six guys are passing time. Five are clapping rhythmically, egging on the sixth, who is spinning exuberantly upside-down on the tarmac. Tomorrow, five of these friends will still be there, passing time away on the street, amiable and envious; the one on his head will be flying first-class back to London, or New York, or Moscow, because he is Carlos Acosta, one of the great classical ballet dancers of our era.

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From Ismene Brown's article, above:

Classifying Bujones as a Cuban ballet dancer is a bit of a stretch. Yes, he received some early training in Cuba. But most of his training and his formative performing years were in the US. (And he was born in Miami.)

<small>[ 28 June 2003, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: djb ]</small>

I'm not completely in agreement with that DJ. I saw a "60 Minutes" special on Acosta a couple of years ago, and according to the reporting of Christianne Amanpour, his training was at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba School. He came to Houston Ballet *after* winning the Lausanne Prize. Of course he recieved training in the US after that, but he was already a world class dancer at that point, as evidenced by his Lausanne award.

Is "DJ" supposed to be "djb"? If so, I was talking about Bujones, not Acosta.

Yes, sorry, I called you "DJ" for short. Yes, and I mis-read that. Yes, Bujones is American for sure.

"DJ" is fine! Just making sure.

Don't forget that the TV documentary about Carlos' life will be shown on BBC1 this Wednesday at 10.35 pm (July 9th).

On the verge
Cuba libre - by Lucy Siegle for The Observer

Name: Carlos Acosta
What: Ballet dancer

They say: 'Watching Carlos dance was better than I ever imagined' Fidel Castro

We say: Brings the poise and skill of Luis Figo to the world of classical ballet.

Carlos Acosta is not your usual ballet dancer. Despite being revered in dance circles for the type of 'supernatural athleticism' that allows him to leap his way through major classical roles, he remains resolutely down to earth. His manner is more footballer than danseur noble, inspiring the kind of devotion from fans that you'd associate more with David Beckham than Darcy Bussell: 'When I was dancing with the Houston Ballet, this guy took off his shirt to show me his back. He basically had a tattoo of me in The Rite of Spring, doing a split leap. That was quite weird.'

Stuart adds: And of course I said - who the heck is Luis Figo? Turns out he's a footballer

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<small>[ 06 July 2003, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Carlos Acosta: 'Ballet is a lil' bit small for me'
He's done all the big roles. Now Carlos Acosta wants to do it his way, says Jenny Gilbert in The Independent.

It's quite hard being in a small room with Carlos Acosta, and not because he takes up space. It's just that you find yourself not knowing where to look. You try the eyes. No, the lashes are too curly. You try staring at his feet - no good either: they're attached to his legs, and he's sitting with them carelessly splayed and oh dear, try the floor.

Once the microphone has been knocked to the ground, clumsily retrieved and repositioned, you settle on a hairline fault in the plaster where two walls meet, rather as a ballet dancer "spots" a point in the audience to stop him getting giddy when he spins. The beauteous Acosta, if he notices any discomposure, is too polite to show it. Nice boy.

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"Tocororo - A Cuban Tale" opens tonight after a lot of preview interest from the national press and a 1-hour TV programme about this wonderful Cuban dancer.

The ticket news from Sadler's is that Tuesday to Thursday all that's left is restricted view. Friday there are a few seats, but there are more for the Saturday matinee and evening performances. Clearly if you want to see this book soon.

I'm sure audiences will enjoy it and I hope Acosta's first venture into choreography doesn't get a mauling at the hands of the critics.