Birmingham Royal Ballet has announced details of its programme up to March 2023, including several highlights in its home city in the year that it hosts the Commonwealth Games, plus UK touring and performing Don Quixote in London.
BRB at the REP
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.
Dance Track 25 (Sunday 8 May) celebrates the 25th anniversary of BRB’s 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) includes the 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 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.
An Evening of Music & Dance and Discover Dance & Music are also at the Nottingham Concert Hall on 7 May.
Sean Foley, Artistic Director of the REP says how delighted he is to have forged an “exciting and dynamic new artistic relationship” with BRB and that he looks forward to welcoming the company back to the main stage.
Photo Johan Persson
On Your Marks – Summer Triple bill
With all eyes are on Birmingham for this summer’s Commonwealth Games, BRB’s Director Carlos Acosta is bringing together three works for an On Your Marks triple bill (23 – 25 June) presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022.
Jorge Crecis created Twelve for Acosta Danza. Now, dancers from BRB and Acosta Danza team up in Twenty-Four, a new version of the ballet that emphasises the power of teamwork. Also on the programme will be a new work by young Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes, whose recent pieces include commissions for Nederlands Dans Theater 2; and the return of Will Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky, set to John Adams’ Shaker Loops, which premiered to great acclaim in 2020.
Don Quixote at Sadler’s Wells
As part of the UK tour of Acosta’s new production of Don Quixote, the ballet will travel to London’s Sadler’s Wells (6-9 July).
(pictured: Nederlands Dans Theater)
Photo Joris-Jan Bos
Into the Music: Autumn triple bill
BRB’s autumn triple bill (Birmingham Hippodrome 21 – 22 October) celebrates the marriage of music and movement. Two UK premieres bookend a world premiere, with each piece set to a major orchestral score performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Former dancer and resident choreographer with Stuttgart Ballet, then Artistic Director of Zurich Ballet (aged just 26) and Leipzig Ballet, Uwe Scholz is noted for his neoclassical and incredibly musical dance. He created more than 100 ballets before his untimely death from illness, aged 44. Now Birmingham audiences get to see one of his superb creations, his dramatic setting of Beethoven’s vibrant Seventh Symphony.
Also on the programme, 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, BRB at last get to dance Jiří Kylián and his magnificent Forgotten Land, a ballet of memory and loss set to Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem.
Photo Birmingham Royal Ballet
Coppélia and Nutcracker
Sir Peter Wright’s joyous Coppélia returns in the autumn, with performances at the Birmingham Hippodrome and Plymouth Theatre Royal in October. The ‘original’ Birmingham Nutcracker returns in its usual pre-Christmas slot at the Hippodrome.
Swan Lake – UK tour
Swan Lake also returns, travelling to Southampton Mayflower, Birmingham Hippodrome, The Lowry, Salford, Sunderland Empire, Plymouth Theatre Royal and Edinburgh Festival Theatre from January – March 2023.
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!”