Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration

BRB2, Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Hippodrome

Repertory includes The Firebird, Le Spectre de la rose, Les Sylphides, Les Biches and Shéhérazade.

14-29 May 2026

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s second company, BRB2, returns to the Birmingham Hippodrome this May with Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration: Diaghilev and the Birth of Modern Ballet—a vibrant tribute to the revolutionary works that reshaped dance in the early 20th century.

Taking place on Tuesday 6 May 2025, the programme showcases a rich selection of ballets associated with legendary impresario Sergei Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes transformed the art form through bold collaborations and modernist vision.

The evening opens with Les Sylphides, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine and set to the music of Frédéric Chopin. A poetic, plotless ballet, it features a series of romantic vignettes performed by BRB2’s emerging dancers, accompanied live on piano by Jeanette Wong.

Following the interval, audiences are transported into the exotic world of Shéhérazade with a dramatic pas de deux danced by Andrea Riolo and Ixan Llorca Ferrer, set to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s evocative score. The programme continues with the dreamlike Le Spectre de la rose, performed by Ariana Allen and Jack Easton, before shifting to the playful elegance of Les Biches, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska.

The evening culminates in a pas de deux from The Firebird, another Fokine masterpiece, featuring Alexandra Manuel and Marlo Kempsey-Fagg, set to the iconic music of Igor Stravinsky.

Throughout the performance, dancers are accompanied by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, bringing these landmark works vividly to life under the lighting design of Johnny Westall-Eyre and staging by Isabelle Fokine.

With a total running time of approximately 1 hour 55 minutes, including an interval, the performance is scheduled to end at around 9.10pm.

BRB2 continues to be supported by a range of major philanthropic organisations and donors, ensuring the development of the next generation of ballet talent while celebrating the art form’s rich heritage.