A new ballet company – you don’t get to say that very often. This one is the younger sibling of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a group of graduates and early career dancers, handpicked by BRB’s artistic director Carlos Acosta.
BRB2 is a kind of finishing school for young dancers, and an amazing opportunity for them to perform roles that principals would usually dance – in excerpts from Swan Lake or La Sylphide – rather than spear-carrying in the corps de ballet. It’s also an effective extension of the BRB brand as this group could tour to theatres the larger company doesn’t reach, with a gala-style bill like this one that’s ideal for new ballet audiences.
There’s something for everyone here, from classical showpieces to modern shorts, plus an intriguing experiment in which The Dying Swan gets a remix, devised by Acosta, bringing together Fokine’s famous female solo with a lesser known male version by the late French choreographer Michel Descombey. The dancers are in different worlds – Regan Hutsell fluttering in her tutu on pointe, Jack Easton awkwardly angular on the floor – but there are moments where they do seem to connect.
Some of BRB2’s first cohort have previously been seen, and noted, in the main BRB company. Beatrice Parma, already a first soloist, arrives sure-footed in Diana and Actaeon, her arabesques springing into place with certainty. The high-jumping Eric Pinto Cata is one to watch, his feet beating like butterfly wings as the kilt-wearing James in La Sylphide. Enrique Bejarano Vidal is a crowd-pleaser when he staggers on clutching a wine bottle to Jacques Brel’s Les Bourgeois and manages to let limbs fly louchely, even when doing exacting steps. And the highlight is Ben Stevenson’s End of Time, in a mature rendering from Lucy Waine and Oscar Kempsey-Fagg, finely in tune with each other and savouring the simple but delicious lines of this restrained, mesmeric pas de deux.
The newer dancers show care and precision, and a developing sense of performance. It’s clear they’re still young, but this an enjoyably impressive showcase, and proof that Acosta is serious about investing in young talent.
