Acosta Danza: Cuban Eclectico

Birmingham Hippodrome
May 13, 2025

Acosta Danza was recently shortlisted for the Best Midscale Company Award in the 2024 National Dance Awards, the winner of which will be announced on June 9 in London. It’s easy to see why. For sheer athleticism, expression and the multiple techniques of the dancers, all on show in Cuban Eclectico, they are hard to beat.

The programme of five works, each by a different choreographer, opened with company dancer Raúl Reinoso’s Satori, described as a ‘spiritual journey into the interior.’ I’m far from convinced the meaning of the different scenes and dances is clear, be they the search, the defeat of obstacles or the moment of knowledge and the discovery of truth and light, but each is very watchable as abstract dance.

The scenes are linked by a huge sheet of blue fabric, with holes that the dances sometimes appear through, and that takes on different forms, changing the stage space as it does so. At first, it looks like the sea, the initially bare-chested performers caught in its waves. Later they wear it like connected long skirts (cue memories of Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort), before it hangs above constantly on the move like a living, breathing cloud. Towards the end, it is used to conceal the rest of the cast as one of the women is lifted, seemingly to her ascension.

Amongst other highlights was a quartet for Adria Díaz, Thalía Cardín, Melisa Moreda and Amisaday Naara that featured big, sharp extensions mixed with more fluid moments. I also enjoyed a trio for Frank Junior Issac, Ofelia Rodríguez, Aniel Pazos, and a sensuous duet for Reinoso and Leandro Fernández. A quirky moment comes when the fabric is used to hide the ensemble’s upper bodies, so that we only see their legs.

Satori was a good starter. But Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Faun that followed was quite simply stunning. To a fusion of Debussy’s famous Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and original music by Nitin Sawhney, Alejandro Silva and Patricia Torres, played out the famous scene.

It pulls you in from the very start. Against a forest backdrop, it opens with Silva dancing alone, his body twisting, turning in the moonlight against the slender huge tree trunks of the backdrop. He manages to be both graceful and ungainly at the same time. As the music segues into Sawhney’s composition, the alluringly animalistic Torres appears as day arrives. When night returns the two join, there’s what looks for all the world like a mating dance before they come together in wonderful expressive choreography full of seductive partnering.

After the interval and in very different mood, Paysage, Soudain, La nuit by Pontus Lidberg is light and bright, the choreography coming with a lovely sense of freedom. It’s seventeen minutes of infectious dance that sweeps you up in its joy. Smiles were everywhere to be seen among the cast, and very believable.

To a rumba-inspired score by Leo Brouwer (Cuban lanscape with rumba) and Stefan Levin (Cuban Landscape) and set against a field of corn, it’s a celebration of youth. Although an essentially ensemble piece that revels in a sense of community, a number of short duets emerge, most notably a flowing dance for two of the males that was quite intimate.

Impronta, a solo by Catalan choreographer María Rovira, merges contemporary and Afro-Cuban folk dance. A compelling, mystical opening soon shifts into a dance that saw the impressive and graceful Amisaday Naara show great presence as she worked towards the piece’s climax. The work did struggle for impact, however, although that was probably a result of what went before.

Cuban Eclectico closes with De punta a cabo, originally created by Alexis Fernández. A sort of view of modern-day Cuban identity, it was inspired by his impressions of contemporary Cuba and its contrasts.

Set against a projection of the Havana skyline that includes film of the company dancing on the Malecón seawall, it demonstrates perfectly the dancers’ versatility with sneakers, pointe shoes and bare feet all in evidence, plus stilettos on the film.

Full of rhythm, there’s very much a sense of community even in the individual moments. It’s very much a dance that wears its personality on its sleeve and that shouts, ‘This is who we are.’ It also rather neatly summed up the evening. An eclectic, effervescent end to Cuban Eclectico.