Carlos Acosta

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Carlos Acosta (2008)

Carlos Acosta CBE (born June 2, 1973 in Havana ) is a Cuban ballet dancer and choreographer .

Live and act

Career as a ballet dancer

Acosta was born in Cuba in 1973. As the 11th child of an impoverished family, he grew up in one of the poorest districts of Havana. Forced by his father, he attended the national ballet school in Havana and successfully completed his training in 1991.

Since 1989 Acosta has danced in numerous companies around the world , including the English National Ballet , the Cuban National Ballet and the Royal Ballet in London , and won various awards, including the 1990 gold medal at the Prix ​​de Lausanne .

Acosta has danced as a guest at the American Ballet Theater (2002), with the Paris Opera Ballet and in numerous companies in Europe, North and South America, Japan and Australia.

In May 2014 he announced his retirement as a classical ballet dancer for the end of the 2015/2016 season. From September 2015 he will be dancing the lead role in a new, self-directed production of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen at the Royal Ballet and will only appear in contemporary pieces after the end of the season.

further activities

As a choreographer, Acosta created Tocororo - A Cuban Tale based on original music by Miguel Nuñez on an autobiographical background . The origin of the work was 2003 in a BBC - documentation entitled Carlos Acosta - "Imagine": The Reluctant Ballet Dancer shown.

In 2011 he founded the charitable foundation Carlos Acosta International Dance Foundation , which is trying to open its own ballet school in Havana. For this purpose, the unfinished and since 1961 decaying buildings on the grounds of the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte in the Cubanacán district, which were originally intended for the Cuban national ballet Alicia Alonsos , are to be extended and rebuilt with the help of the architect Norman Foster .

In the summer of 2015, he called on young Cuban dancers to come to Havana on two days in August to audition for a new ballet company made up of six female and six male dancers, which he wants to build up in his hometown.

In September 2018, the film Yuli by Spanish director Icíar Bollaín celebrated its premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival . The German theatrical release took place on January 17, 2019. The biopic tells of Acosta's beginnings in the state ballet school in Cuba and his rise to one of the best dancers in the world.

In January 2019 it was announced that Carlos Acosta would take over the artistic direction of the Birmingham Royal Ballet in January 2020.

Filmography

Works

  • Pig's Foot . Novel. Translated into English by Frank Wynne, Bloomsbury 2013
  • No Way Home: A Cuban Dancer's Story. Autobiography. HarperCollins, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-00-725783-6 .
  • German edition: No way back. The story of a Cuban dancer . Translated from English by Matthias Müller. Schott Music, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-7957-0192-5 .

literature

  • Margaret Willis: Carlos Acosta: The Reluctant Dancer. Biography. Blackamber, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-906413-71-2 .

Web links

Commons : Carlos Acosta  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elisabeth Wellershaus on Spiegel Online : “Ballet star Acosta: An die Stange beat” , January 3, 2009
  2. ^ Carlos Acosta biography
  3. ↑ Hannah Furness: Carlos Acosta: I'm retiring from ballet, in: The Telegraph, May 25, 2014 (English)
  4. ↑ Sian Disson: World-famous ballet dancer Carlos Acosta returns to Cuba to back Foster-designed Cuba School of Dance in Havana in: World Architecture News from June 25, 2012, accessed on July 2, 2012 (English)
  5. ↑ Carlos Acosta se apresta a fundar compañía de ballet en Cuba. In: Radio Habana Cuba from August 4, 2015 (Spanish)
  6. ^ Mark Brown: Carlos Acosta to be Birmingham Royal Ballet director . In: The Guardian . January 15, 2019 ( theguardian.com [accessed January 17, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Acosta, Carlos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban ballet dancer and choreographer
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd June 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana , Cuba