ACOSTA DANZA BY CARLOS ACOSTA, FIRST NAME CONFIRMED FOR THE NEXT CASTELL DE PERALADA FESTIVAL

ACOSTA DANZA BY CARLOS ACOSTA, FIRST NAME CONFIRMED FOR THE NEXT CASTELL DE PERALADA FESTIVAL

At a press conference on 26th November, in the Salón Fuster of the Hotel Casa Fuster in Barcelona, acclaimed Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta presented his participation in the 33rd Castell de Peralada Festival. After an exceptional career as an international ballet star, dance icon Carlos Acosta launched his new company, based in his native Havana, in 2015. The company presented its show Debut at the 31st edition of the festival on the evening of the fateful 17 August 2017, when the city of Barcelona was brutally rocked by a terrorist attack. That night, the dancing of Carlos Acosta and his young and talented company was presented for the first time in Spain, and its presentation was quite a declaration of intent.

Carlos Acosta and the director of the Castell de Peralada Festival, Oriol Aguilà, presented the new artistic proposal for next summer. A proposal tailor-made for the Peralada Festival. The evening will begin with Imponderable, by Madrid choreographer Goyo Montero, by whom audiences will also be able to see a new creation, as yet untitled. Imponderable is a reflection on what is incomprehensible, indescribable, what we cannot measure, such as an emotion, the weight of the soul, or of the spirit. It will be followed by Mermaid, created by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for Acosta Danza. A choreography in which Cherkaoui has explored another mythical creature, invoking the idea of the Mermaid through the contemporary dancer who, dancing with pointe shoes, plays a fish out of water who manages to get help when Carlos Acosta appears. A Carlos Acosta who will also be performing the fantastic and hypnotic Twoby Russell Maliphant, which he performed at the festival in 2017. The programme will close with Twelve,by Spaniard Jorge Crecis. An exclusive recreation for Acosta Danza based on the piece 36 that the choreographer created in 2011 for the Edge company and presented in 2012 at the Royal Opera House in London.

The company created and directed by Carlos Acosta is made up of the best dancers that Cuba has to offer and who have trained both in classical ballet and in the various styles of contemporary dance and is in response to Carlos Acosta’s desire to pay tribute to the wealth of Cuban culture. A company that performs both newly-created pieces and other existing ones by Cuban choreographers who have rarely been seen outside Cuba, and with new pieces commissioned from international choreographers who are inspired by this iconic nation.

Carlos Acosta presented his performance at the Castell de Peralada Festival on the same day as the Cines Verdi in Barcelona staged the première of the film YULI,the biopic about Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta. YULI is the new work by award-winning director Icíar Bollaín in a new collaboration with acclaimed screenwriter Paul Laverty. The film had its world première at the last San Sebastián Film Festival, where it was received with excellent reviews and won the Best Screenplay Award for Laverty. The film was produced by Juan Gordon, from Morena Films, and Andrea Calderwood, from Potboiler Productions, in co-production with Producciones de la 5.ª Avenida and the ICAIC (Cuba), Match Factory Productions (Germany), Galápagos Media and Hijo de Ogún A.I.E. (Spain) and distributed by E-One.

YULI is an emotional journey through Carlos Acosta’s life, from his tough childhood in Cuba to achieving legendary status in dance, becoming the first black dancer to lead the Royal Ballet. Despite his success and international acclaim, he never forgot his origins, and the film is based on his autobiography, No Way Home, now published in Spanish as Sin mirar atrás by Plataforma Editorial.