Carlos Acosta is on the cusp of change. He is leaving the Royal Ballet at the end of this season, and has already said that he hopes to segue effortlessly into a contemporary dance career.
That knowledge makes this programme of Cuban-inflected dance that he has brought back to the Royal Opera House a subject of keen study for clues to his future direction. Yet Acosta’s qualities as a classical dancer – openness, drama, consideration, easy skill – seem muted in this attractive but decorous evening.
It opens with Derrumbe, a duet for Acosta and Pieter Symonds (formerly of Rambert), choreographed by Miguel Altunaga, a dancer with Rambert. Starkly lit and accompanied by a plangent rock score, it presents a dark picture of a relationship in decay: she blocks his blows, he parries her kisses. They lean into each other and pull apart, unable to let go, their movement in constant tension. Clothes rain down from above – a rather too obvious symbol of a chaotic affair, but it is consistently compelling.
Even better is Flux by Russell Maliphant, in which the terrific Alexander Varona circles in and out of an expanding pool of light, as fluid as water yet with fierce inner strength. In Ecuación, George Céspedes pinions the excellent dancers of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba inside a steel cube; the steps are sleek and syncopated, but it doesn’t have much to say.
That’s the besetting problem of Sight Unseen by Edwaard Liang, which brings back Acosta, this time with Royal Ballet mate Zenaida Yanowsky to unfold their limbs elegantly in search of some kind of spiritual revelation. It’s lovely, but mysterious in the wrong way.
After the interval the mood lifts with a reprise of Acosta’s own Tocororo Suite, in which he plays the balletic ingenue being initiated into Cuban style by Varona’s swaggering Mr Big. It’s energetic, warm-hearted and – particularly in the duets for Acosta and Verónica Corveas – achieves a certain momentum.
However, if Acosta wants his contemporary career to be as memorable as the one in ballet, he is going to have to dig deeper than this programme, and find choreographers who can unlock new qualities in him.
