The Acosta Danza companyunder the tutelage of the prestigious Cuban dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta, celebrates this weekend in Havana a decade of “sacrifices and delivery” on stage with its fusion of classical and contemporary techniques.
“There have been ten years of sacrifice, of delivery, to accompany Carlos and make his dreams come true. We are also happy for what was achieved,” he says in dialogue with EFE The company’s artistic director, Yaday Ponce.
Acosta (Havana, 1973) founded the company at the end of 2015, although it artistically debuted in April 2016 in the middle of the Havana Cultural Boom that came from the hand of the approach between Cuba and the United States.
For Ponce, “those beginnings were very hard: get people to understand what Carlos wanted, a classic dancer, making a contemporary company.”
“Understanding that cost a little work, but I think it was achieved,” he says at the headquarters of Acosta Danza, in the Vedado neighborhood of Vedado, during an essay prior to the premiere of the season commemorating the anniversary, called ‘A decade in motion’, which takes place in Havana this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
A personal project
Acosta, current director of the Royal Ballet of Birmingham, is considered by critics as one of the greatest referents of world dance.
Formed at the National Ballet School of Havana, he consolidated a career endorsed by numerous distinctions, including the 1990s Prix of Lausanne. He retired from the stage in 2016 after 28 years professionally dancing in prestigious companies in Cuba and the world.
It was then that he founded his own company, giving life to a personal project in which he appropriated the techniques of classic ballet and combined them, with ability and imagination, to the freedom of movement of modern dance.
Ponce, who accompanies the prestigious will dance since the beginning, emphasizes that “he is a director present all the time”, even when currently resided in the United Kingdom.
“It is a figure and an example for me, not only as a dancer, but also as a director. It is very demanding: with cleanliness, the repertoire … with everything. It is constantly communication, present all the time, even if it is not with us,” he explains.
Anniversary season
Each of the 14 dancers who currently make up Acosta Danza – all young people trained in their own academy – infect energy and passion by rehearsing the four pieces with which they will celebrate the ten years.
The evening covers the interpretation of 98 days of the Hispanic-Venezuelan choreographer Javier de Frutos, inspired by the stay of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca in Cuba; The equationby Cuban Georges Céspedes; and Callwith choreography by Goyo Montero.
The show closes with Outof Ponce herself, from the original piece of the Cuban choreographer Alexis Fernández, a work nominated in 2022 to the Olivier Laurence Award from the United Kingdom.
On this last particular piece, the young teacher explains that it is part of the repertoire “since the company was founded, and is a reflection of the Cuban, a representation of what Cuba is, how the Cuban feels, of her way of moving.”
“It is integrative because it includes dancers, musicians, audiovisual materials. It is what Carlos wanted when creating the company in Cuba: that all manifestations of art were integrated into the show and publicize all that Cuban talent to the world,” he says.
Various recognitions support the company’s work, including the National Dance Award (2025) of the United Kingdom as the best medium format company.
For Ponce, his personal “greatest achievement” has been the formation of his own dancers: “to have an artistic-educational unit as the company’s relay with young people from all over Cuba.”
Laura Bécquer report.
