Tag Archives: Sadler’s Wells East

NEXT GENERATION

★★★★

Sadler’s Wells East

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NEXT GENERATION

Sadler’s Wells East

★★★★

“The dancers show their beauty and abundance of talent throughout”

One of the thrilling experiences in theatre and performance is to see the stars of tomorrow start to emerge. Not yet fully formed, but with many of the jigsaw pieces in place. Who, might you guess, will rise to the heights and who fall by the wayside?

We can imagine the excitement of the ballet world when a boy, turning 18, the 11th child of an impoverished working class family in Havana won the gold medal at the Prix de Lausanne – before climbing to the peak of international ballet. Now, for the next three nights at Sadlers Wells East, we get to see how Carlos Acosta – now founder of the Cuban Dance Academy and Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet – is paving the way for others like him. Ten extraordinary young graduates from Acosta’s junior academy are performing four pieces in a programme that is vibrant, full of energy and poignancy, and that draws heavily on Cuba’s cultural heritage.

Acosta Danza Yunior is only three years old, designed to be a bridge for 18-21 year olds between the Academy and Acosta Danza. So what we have here is technical skill and youthful energy in its first flowering. Every one of the dancers casts on stage the shadow of their devotion to dance and the discipline of their training. We also have lovely pieces by artistic creators connected to Acosta and Cuba: Susana Pous, Didy Veldman and Juliano Nunes.

The first piece, in two parts, is a fluid and tragic exposition of migration. Eight dancers come together in bounded space – an interpretation of island – flow as if a single structure and then break up as individuals silently depart and those that remain briefly mourn. Lighting streams from the side and an overhanging sun/moon light up the otherwise dark scene. One note on the programme – it lists one piece for the first half of the evening but it unfolds as two parts — it seems to be a work sitting somewhere between a single vision and two distinct pieces.

In the second half, two dancers open with Kit Holder’s Capriccio, inspired by René Magritte’s ‘The Lovers’. It is a physical and evocative exploration of connectedness and separation. For the final piece the eight dancers of the first half return in a journey the programme describes as ‘from general sentiment to spiritual essence’. It appears to echo some of the ideas of the first half of the show, but is subtle in its emotion and enhanced by a fragile art installation by Glenda Leon of water lily flowers moving and hanging overhead.

The dancers show their beauty and abundance of talent throughout. Not yet in their prime, some emotional depth has yet to be developed in their performance. This will no doubt come as they move forward, and extraordinary connection replaces what seems a degree of reticence in feelings. Overall, this is a rare opportunity to see what may be to come for international dance and where Carlos Acosta may still be achieving his best.



NEXT GENERATION

Sadler’s Wells East

Reviewed on 17th June 2026

by Louise Sibley

Photography by Jayne Jackson


 

 

 

 

NEXT GENERATION

NEXT GENERATION

NEXT GENERATION

F*CKING FUTURE

★★★★

Sadler’s Wells East

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

F*CKING FUTURE

Sadler’s Wells East

★★★★

“a triumphant return to Sadler’s Wells”

The performance space, a square, reflective floor surrounded on all four sides by close seating, falls into complete darkness. A single beat begins, somewhere between a metronome, a sonar and slow pulse of electronic music. As the light gradually rises, eight dancers individually enter the space, introducing a regimented walk-step, a forward and backward rocking march, at once jerky and effortless that forms a basis of the performance and from which emerge more expressive movements as the piece unfolds. Musically the atmosphere expands from that single beat into a techno-heavy score designed by Rui Lima and Sérgio Martins.

The eight performers are Catarina Casqueiro, Eríc Amorim dos Santos, Fábio Krayze, Doisy Bryan, Matias Rocha Moura, Max Makowski and Nala Revlon, alongside the artistic director and choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira. They are dressed simply in loose reflective trousers and a light chainmail top and are intended to be ghosts from a previous century. Their performance is flawless, even in the near stasis of the march they appear effortless, almost gliding through the space. When moments of unison coalesce, they are striking, especially a square formation when, as one, the dancers raise one arm to the side, level with their shoulder and the other directly in front of them, confronting the audience, they make a quarter turn while lowering and swapping their arms, slapping their leg on the change. The result evokes both semaphore signalling and a marching band, underscoring questions of conformity, militarisation, and the structures that shape and inhibit all of us.

This moment encapsulates the narrative of the piece (Marco da Silva Ferreiro with Catarina Miranda and Cristina Planas Leitão): the performers are eight ghosts, the fallen dead from a previous century who died defending a system they did not believe in, at a time in which war was commonplace. Through the marching step, rigid 4×4 pulse of the music and militaristic dress, the piece questions the systems that shape us all, demanding conformity while also providing a language with which to rebel. What is the place for queer and non-white bodies in society, how can we use the tools of repression for liberation, without falling into a fetishism of power, how does eroticism activate and undermine masculinity? How can we fashion the lessons, expectations and constraints of the past into a more liberatory, as-yet-unknown future? These questions implicitly arise from the performance, as the more expressive steps arise from the base of the march, building towards a hopeful, confrontational, and sublimely surprising finale.

The atmosphere is enhanced through the exceptional use of lighting (Teresa Antunes, Rui Monteiro, Marco da Silva Ferreira). At moments, a single ring of blue light scans the floor passing over the dancers, at others a laser bisects the stage. Most effective is the use of the reflecting floor which sometimes produces mirror images of the performers or casts distorted shadows up to the roof spaces, which in themselves are beautiful and contribute to the otherworldliness of the piece.

A slight weakness on the night I saw the production was the chanted section when the dancers state that they are ‘the ghosts that you tried to kill’. I found the delivery of these key lines is a little lost against the musical accompaniment, which feels like a missed opportunity given that it is the only spoken moment of the performance. Despite this, the performance was captivating and the Q&A with Marco da Silva Ferreira was interesting and informative.

In our current moment, where militarism is once again rising and rights for minoritised groups are under attack, F*cking Future is a vital intervention into the dialogue and a triumphant return to Sadler’s Wells by the acclaimed choreographer. Friday night’s performance will be followed by an after event DJ’d by Rui Lima and Sérgio Martins, based on this, it stands to be a great party.

 



F*CKING FUTURE

Sadler’s Wells East

Reviewed on 4th June 2026

by Rob Tomlinson

Photography by João Octávio


 

 

 

 

F*CKING FUTURE

F*CKING FUTURE

F*CKING FUTURE