Birmingham Royal Ballet today announces its programme plans from May 2022 – March 2023. In a big year for the city, the season includes several highlights in Birmingham during the year that it hosts the Commonwealth Games, as well as touring the UK and bringing the new production of Don Quixote to London.
Carlos Acosta said: ‘Since the start of this year the company has been hard at work preparing for our biggest tour in two years with my Don Quixote, and the pace will not let up this year! I am so excited to be finally returning to some semblance of normality – though there are still many challenges – and am extremely proud to present this 2022/23 season. It demonstrates BRB’s ongoing commitment to the greats of classic canon whilst also featuring work by artists who are new to the company, world premieres and extremely demanding repertoire. I am also, of course, thrilled that BRB dancers will perform on stage alongside Acosta Danza. We have always been an international company but you will also see that we are performing everything we do in our home city of Birmingham. It’s going to be an amazing year for us – and for our audiences too!’
Once the current tour of Don Quixote concludes, the company goes straight back into rehearsals for a busy Spring/Summer beginning with a return to The Rep for a week-long residency of performances aimed at all ages.
Dance Track 25 (Sunday 8 May) celebrates the 25th anniversary of BRB’s landmark talent development scheme, with BRB Principals Céline Gittens and Brandon Lawrence hosting performances by Dance Track alumni.
New Dance Now (Tuesday 10 May) is a showcase of new choreographic talent that features new work by young choreographers from the UK’s leading ballet companies in an audience vote contest.
An Evening of Music and Dance (Friday 13 & Saturday 14 May) sees BRB’s world-class dancers perform brilliant ballet repertoire hand-picked by Director Carlos Acosta, including the famous Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty and the beautiful Farewell pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Winter Dreams with live music from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.
Discover Dance & Music (Friday 13 – Saturday 14 May) is a magical journey into ballet for everyone ages 4+, with Shireenah Ingram hosting performances from classic ballets to live music from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in an all-round showcase.
Sean Foley, Artistic Director of Birmingham Rep said, ‘BRB’s first return to live performance since the beginning of Covid was at The REP in October 2021- with the World Premiere of Lazuli Sky; BRB and The REP collaborated on a specially adapted seasons of The Nutcracker and Sir David Bintley’s Cinderella during ‘20 and ‘21, and our first major co-production was City of A Thousand Trades, co-directed by The REP’s Associate Director Madeleine Kludje, which played at The REP and Sadler’s Wells during Summer ’21. We are delighted to have forged such an exciting and dynamic new artistic relationship with Birmingham Royal Ballet over the last year, and now look forward to welcoming our City partners back to our epic and intimate main stage for a season that celebrates some of the very best new work from this magnificent Company.’
All eyes are on Birmingham this summer for the Commonwealth Games – and to mark the moment, BRB’s Director Carlos Acosta is bringing together three thrilling works for a triple bill presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022. On Your Marks (23 – 25 June) celebrates the expressive energy and gravity-defying athleticism of the company’s world-class dancers.
Jorge Crecis created the dazzling Twelve for Acosta Danza. For the first time ever, dancers from BRB and Acosta Danza will be teaming up to premiere a new version of this thrilling dive into the power of teamwork, retitled Twenty-Four. A new work from brilliant young Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes, whose recent pieces include commissions for Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Marie-Agnès Gillot will receive its world premiere; and to close, an ecstatic ode to the power of nature and the glory of movement: Will Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky, set to John Adams’ irresistible Shaker Loops which premiered to great acclaim in 2020, returns to a Birmingham stage.
As the UK tour of BRB’s new production of Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote begins, BRB is delighted to announce that the production will travel to London’s Sadler’s Wells (6-9 July).
BRB’s autumn triple bill celebrates the marriage of music and movement. Two UK premieres bookend a world premiere in this unmissable mixed programme curated by Carlos Acosta, with each piece set to a major orchestral score performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (Birmingham Hippodrome 21 – 22 October).
Much-missed German choreographer Uwe Scholz worked regularly with classical repertoire – and never more dramatically than in his setting of Beethoven’s vibrant Seventh Symphony, a work famously described by Wagner as ‘the apotheosis of the dance’. Choreographer Morgann Runacre-Temple and composer Mikael Karlsson team up for the world premiere of Ballet Now commission Hotel, a surreal journey into the secrets and lies that live behind closed doors. And to close, Jiří Kylián’s magnificent Forgotten Land illustrates why Kylián is one of the most revered choreographers of the 20th century with a gripping journey into memory and loss set to Benjamin Britten’s magnificent Sinfonia da Requiem.
Love conquers all in Sir Peter Wright’s joyous classic brought back to the stage by Birmingham Royal Ballet for the first time in five years, with Léo Delibes’ glorious score performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.
When eccentric toymaker Dr Coppélius leaves his greatest creation, the doll Coppélia, on his workshop balcony, she’s soon causing quite a stir in the village. Comic chaos is unleashed as Dr Coppélius tries to bring Coppélia to life in this timeless classic. Coppelia will be performed at the Birmingham Hippodrome and Plymouth Theatre Royal in October.
Ballet’s greatest love story returns in BRB’s lavish production. This romantic fable of ill-fated passion, powerfully illuminated by Tchaikovsky’s legendary score played live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, has bewitched audiences for generations and will tour to Southampton Mayflower, Birmingham Hippodrome, The Lowry, Salford, Sunderland Empire, Plymouth Theatre Royal and Edinburgh Festival Theatre from January – March 2023.
