Carlos Acosta Announces His Swan Song to Classical Ballet
Carlos Acosta Announces His Swan Song to Classical Ballet
Added by Saki Kahala on June 1, 2014.
Carlos Acosta announced at the Hay Festival in Wales this past week, that he will be retiring from ballet within two years time. His final appearance with the Royal Ballet, based in London, will be in a production of Carmen that he plans to choreograph and star in. At the end of the 2015/2016 season, his reign as the most powerfully stunning, charismatic and accomplished male performer still dancing ballet today, will come to a close.
Known for his incredible soaring leaps and his boundless artistic energy, Carlos’s performances are exceptionally beautiful and breathtaking. His dance is pure and heartfelt. The audience becomes entranced and mesmerized, as they are transported into the story that is being told through the timeless language of Carlos Acosta’s dance.
Coming from an impoverished part of Havana, Cuba, he was born in 1973, and grew up the youngest in a family of eleven children. Carlos has said that his father had fought for every penny that they had. He was quoted as saying that if he really wanted something, he had to beg for it from his father. The mattress he shared with his siblings had springs popping out of it in various spots. They needed to map out where they would sleep each night to keep from hitting themselves on the metal springs in the middle of the night.
His life growing up was that of a rambunctious boy who wanted to play football and baseball. Carlos has been known as a kid who was always jumping around. By the age of nine, his restless spirit would lead him to skip school and spend time break-dancing or getting into trouble on the streets of Havana. In 1982, his father made a decision to send him to ballet camp at the National Ballet School of Cuba.
Read more at http://guardianlv.com/2014/06/carlos-acosta-announces-his-swan-song-to-classical-ballet/#shZt9Ci1sXYZ1ryC.99
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Carlos Acosta Hopes to Start Cuban Ballet Company
HAVANA — Aug 11, 2014, 2:33 PM ET
By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA Associated Press
Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta says he aspires to open a dance company on the island after retiring from The Royal Ballet of London.
Acosta told the Communist Party newspaper Granma for a Monday article that he'd like to form a small company along neoclassical and contemporary lines.
The 41-year-old is among the world's top ballet dancers. He was one of 11 children born to a poor Havana family and studied with the National Ballet of Cuba.
Acosta joined The Royal Ballet in 1998 and has been a principal guest artist since 2003. He is retiring from classical dance after the 2015-2016 season.
The dancer earlier toyed with the idea of rescuing the ruins of Havana's crumbling dance school and turning it into an international center for culture and dance.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/carlos-acosta-hopes-start-cuban-ballet-company-24932914
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Carlos Acosta: I'm retiring from ballet
The acclaimed ballet star Carlos Acosta will say his final farewell with a new production of Carmen with the Royal Ballet
By Hannah Furness, Arts Correspondent
5:33PM BST 25 May 2014
Carlos Acosta has announced that he will retire from classical ballet with a "swan song" production of Carmen.
Acosta, the world-renowned dancer, said he would make his final appearance in classical ballet in two years' time.
Acosta, who has recently turned 40, also shared his thoughts on a new generation of ballet dancers, saying that an increasing number took up the discipline for money and fame rather than passion.
The Cuban dancer has hinted that he was approaching retirement for a couple of years, but he remains one of the leading lights of ballet across the globe.
He is widely considered among the most charismatic and dramatic of performers, receiving critical acclaim and selling out theatres wherever he performs.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/10855436/Carlos-Acosta-Im-retiring-from-ballet.html