Birmingham Royal Ballet announced today that international star Carlos Acosta will be taking over as director in January of 2020. Current BRB director David Bintley will be stepping down this summer, at the end of the company’s 2019 season, after a 24-year tenure. “It is a tremendous honor and privilege to have been appointed to […]

We admit it. We’re picky about dance movies. They don’t always represent our beloved art form accurately, or use real dancers to play the main roles. But we just watched the first trailer for the new Carlos Acosta biopic, Yuli, and we’re kinda speechless: There’s an adorable young actor—Edilson Manuel Olbera Núñez—playing Acosta (who looks […]

Back in January , we took a look at Hollywood’s 2018 dance card. While Red Sparrow and the Tiler Peck documentary Ballet Now have been released, several other films that piqued our curiosity are still in various stages of development. (And some have been radio silent, like the Carmen being helmed by Benjamin Millepied.) From […]

What does a superstar like Carlos Acosta do after bidding farewell to his career in classical ballet? In Acosta’s case, he returns to his native country, Cuba, to funnel his fame, connections and prodigious energies back into the dance scene that formed him. Because of its top-notch, state-supported training programs and popular embrace of the […]

What does it take to become an international superstar? Carlos Acosta might have a few ideas. At the Oxford Literary Festival earlier this month, the BBC sat down with Acosta to ask for his life lessons. His answers—which he says he will pass on to his kids one day—give incredible insight into how he’s become […]

Oh, Hollywood. In any given year, Tinseltown’s use of dance in film veers from the woefully disappointing to the surprisingly delightful, but one thing’s for certain: It’s rarely boring. Here’s our not-at-all-comprehensive and completely-subject-to-change list of the new dance-related movies coming soon to a theater (or laptop screen) near you. Red Sparrow Based on Jason […]

Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson, Debra Austin, Nora Kimball, Misty Copeland, Francesca Hayward. All of these successful black ballet dancers have something in common: they skew toward the fairer end of the sepia spectrum. Onstage, the duskiness of their complexions can be all but washed out, bleached by the lights. From the audience, they could present […]

Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) was the ballet that shook the world. One hundred years ago, the chic crowd in Paris booed or cheered, argued loudly, and even came to blows. Nijinsky stood on a chair and yelled out the counts to keep the Ballets Russes dancers going, while Diaghilev commanded the […]