Birmingham Royal Ballet announces 2022/23 season

Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) has today announced its programme plans from May 2022 – March 2023. The season includes several highlights in Birmingham in the year it hosts the Commonwealth Games, as well as touring the UK and bringing a new production of Don Quixote to London.

Director Carlos Acosta said: “Since the start of this year the company has been hard at work preparing for our biggest tour in two years with my Don Quixote, and the pace will not let up this year! I am so excited to be finally returning to some semblance of normality – though there are still many challenges – and am extremely proud to present the 2022/23 season. It demonstrates BRB’s ongoing commitment to the greats of classic canon whilst also featuring work by artists who are new to the company, world premieres and extremely demanding repertoire. I am also, of course, thrilled that BRB dancers will perform on stage alongside Acosta Danza. We have always been an international company but you will see that we are performing everything we do in our home city of Birmingham. It’s going to be an amazing year for us – and for our audiences too!”

The season begins with a week-long residency at The Rep with performances for all ages. Dance Track 25 (8 May) celebrates the 25th anniversary of BRB’s landmark talent development scheme, hosted by BRB Principals Céline Gittens and Brandon Lawrence with performances by Dance Track alumni. New Dance Now (10 May) is a showcase of new choreographic talent that features new work by young choreographers from the UK’s leading ballet companies in an audience vote contest. An Evening of Music and Dance (13-14 May) sees BRB’s world-class dancers perform ballet repertoire hand-picked by Director Carlos Acosta, with live music from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. Discover Dance & Music (13-14 May) is a magical journey into ballet for ages 4+, with Shireenah Ingram hosting performances from classic ballets to live music from the Royal Ballet Sinfonia in an all-round showcase.

All eyes are on Birmingham this summer for the Commonwealth Games and to mark the occasion, Carlos Acosta is bringing together three thrilling works for a triple bill presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2022. On Your Marks (23-25 June) celebrates the expressive energy and gravity-defying athleticism of the company’s world-class dancers. Jorge Crecis created Twelve for Acosta Danza. For the first time ever, dancers from BRB and Acosta Danza will be teaming up to premiere a new version of this dazzling dive into the power of teamwork, retitled Twenty-Four. A new work from young Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes will receive its world premiere; and to close, an ecstatic ode to the power of nature and the glory of movement: Will Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky, set to John Adams’ irresistible Shaker Loops which premiered to great acclaim in 2020, returns to a Birmingham stage.  

As the UK tour of BRB’s new production of Don Quixote begins, BRB is delighted to announce that the production will travel to London’s Sadler’s Wells (6-9 July). 

BRB’s autumn triple bill celebrates the marriage of music and movement. Two UK premieres bookend a world premiere in this mixed programme curated by Carlos Acosta, with each piece set to a major orchestral score performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia (Birmingham Hippodrome, 21-22 October). Choreographer Uwe Scholz worked regularly with classical repertoire, never more dramatically than in his setting of Beethoven’s vibrant Seventh Symphony. Choreographer Morgann Runacre-Temple and composer Mikael Karlsson team up for the world premiere of Ballet Now commission Hotel, a surreal journey into the secrets and lies that live behind closed doors. And to close, Jiří Kylián’s magnificent Forgotten Land illustrates why Kylián is one of the most revered choreographers of the 20th century with a gripping journey into memory and loss set to Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem.

Love conquers all in Sir Peter Wright’s joyous Coppélia, brought back to the stage by BRB for the first time in five years, with Léo Delibes’ score performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. When eccentric toymaker Dr Coppélius leaves his greatest creation, the doll Coppélia, on his workshop balcony, she’s soon causing quite a stir in the village. Comic chaos is unleashed as Dr Coppélius tries to bring Coppélia to life in this timeless classic. Coppélia will be performed at the Birmingham Hippodrome and Plymouth Theatre Royal in October. 

Ballet’s greatest love story, Swan Lake, returns in BRB’s lavish production. This romantic fable of ill-fated passion, powerfully illuminated by Tchaikovsky’s legendary score played live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, has bewitched audiences for generations and will tour to Southampton Mayflower, Birmingham Hippodrome, The Lowry, Salford, Sunderland Empire, Plymouth Theatre Royal and Edinburgh Festival Theatre from January to March 2023.

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