Carlos Acosta Ballet Celebration

Birmingham Royal Ballet presents Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration: Diaghilev and the Birth of Modern Ballet, an all-new programme for BRB2’s 2025 third UK tour.

Described as ‘pinsharp and personality laden’, BRB2 brings together some of the world’s very best young dancers, the international stars of the future, to share their incredible talent.

Carlos Acosta has created a brand-new gala production for this year, featuring highlights from the repertory of Serge Diaghilev’s troupe of rebel dancers, musicians and designers who fled Russia to set a new standard in creativity that inspires and resonates across the world of dance to this day.

The first half of the programme features Les Sylphides and the second half includes Scheherazade pas de deux, a solo and pas de deux from Les Biches, Le Spectre de la rose and Firebird pas de deux.

The programme pays tribute to Mikhail Fokine and the seminal works he created at the beginning of the last century. The choreography, sets and costumes will remain faithful to Fokine’s original vision but will be adapted to fit smaller stages. As with last season’s Classical Selection, the repertoire will showcase and develop emerging talent and present important repertoire. Les Sylphides will be danced to live piano, and the remainder of the programme to a recording made by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia exclusively for this tour.

BRB2 puts the spotlight on some of the best ballet dancers from across the globe aged 18 to 22. The original cohort of BRB2 dancers Maïlène Katoch, Jack Easton, Frieda Kaden, Oscar Kempsey-Fagg and Mason King all completed the two-year programme in BRB’s junior company last season and have now joined the main company as Artists.