Birmingham Royal Ballet 2021-22 plans

David Mead

Following Birmingham Royal Ballet’s return to live performance with the Curated by Carlos season and Cinderella at Birmingham REP and Theatre Royal Plymouth, the company’s 2021-22 season again balances the new and classic.

The company’s homecoming season at Birmingham Hippodrome in early October features Kenneth MacMillan’s passionate Romeo and Juliet. The enduringly popular ballet will also tour to Plymouth later in the month.

In Carlos Curates: R&J Reimagined, Romeo and Juliet gets a very different treatment with the company premiere of Romanian choreographer Edward Clug’s Radio and Juliet, a reinvention of the classic story set to the music of Radiohead, featuring tracks from Kid A, Amnesiac and OK Computer. This version explores what could have happened if Juliet decided not to take her own life. Something of the emotional rollercoaster you might imagine, the Clug’s ballet has toured widely since its premiere in 2005.

Radio and Juliet forms a double bill with a new work from Birmingham-based choreographer Rosie Kay, whose own very Birmingham Romeo + Juliet, set in the city in summer 2021, premieres at the Hippodrome on September 8.

Carlos Acosta said, “Shakespeare’s timeless story of love and passion has inspired so many versions over the centuries, not least translated into dance. We’re exploring some of this rich reinterpretation in our double bill Carlos Curates: R&J Reimagined, also in October. I really love Edward Clug’s contemporary reinvention of the story and I’m also thrilled that we are continuing to build relationships with other Birmingham arts companies and that we’ll be joined by Rosie Kay Dance Company who will complete this exciting programme.”

October sees the postponed and adapted London run of Curated by Carlos at Sadler’s Wells. The triple bill is as recently seen in Birmingham, which opens with Miguel Altunaga’s City of a Thousand Trades, a celebration of the city’s richly diverse cultural and industrial heritage. Also on the programme are Brazilian/British choreographer Daniela Cardim’s Imminent, and Goyo Montero’s Chacona, which will feature a new duet created for Carlos Acosta and Alessandra Ferri. Ferri said ‘We always wanted to do more together but never had the opportunity. Really I think this is a dream come true for both of us.’

After The Nutcracker returns to both the Birmingham Hippodrome and Royal Albert Hall, February 2022, promises Spanish sunshine with the arrival of Acosta’s postponed new production of Don Quixote.