Last Updated on September 24, 2025
A Slice of Havana in London
4.0 out of 5.0 starsHavana-based Acosta Danza marks its 10th anniversary with A Decade in Motion, a programme characterised by the combination of freshness, pizzazz and compelling dancing, which has been the company’s hallmark since its creation by the Cuban superstar Carlos Acosta soon after his retirement from The Royal Ballet in 2015.
Acosta’s intent was to showcase Cuba’s vibrant, multifaceted culture and provide a vehicle to develop the talent and versatility of its dancers. Cuba continues to punch way above its weight when it comes to producing outstanding dancers. None of the current crop of 17 were part of the original cohort that so dazzled us when they first burst onto the London stage a decade ago. Yet, they are as technically accomplished, fresh and irresistible as their predecessors.
In this celebratory programme, they were as much at ease in the geometric abstraction of George Céspedes La Ecuación, the sophisticated sensuality of Javier de Frutos’s 98 Días, the ponderous philosophising of Goyo Montero’s Llamada, and the warm, carefree expression of Cuban identity of Alexis Fernández’s De Punta a Cabo.
La Ecuación (The Equation) by the experienced Cuban choreographer George Céspedes, is a very neat, crisp piece, a 15-minute opener that shows off the dancers’ technical ability and meticulous coordination. Danced inside the outlines of a large cube, it starts in silence. Each of three women and one man clad in bright practice costumes takes to the cube to perform a series of poses, cutting geometric lines and figures in the air, before the beat of maracas segues into the techno beat of X Alfonso’s music and all join in, in a medley of colour and syncopated movement.
Next comes what to me was the best piece of the evening, 98 Días, by the veteran Spanish-Venezuelan, London-based choreographer Javier de Frutos. Inspired by the 98 days the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca spent in Cuba in the 1930s, Javier de Frutos choreographed to a combination of Garcia Lorca’s own writings, read out on voice over in the original Spanish, and poignant, evocative music by the Spanish artist Estrella Morente.
Garcia Lorca was first struck by how Cuba’s light and colour assaulted his senses and brought back so many memories of Spain; by how Black Cubans identified as Latin; by the island’s mixture of the foreign and the familiar.
A Garcia Lorca figure stands alone centre-stage as his words are read out. Nine figures watch him, all identically costumed in deep blue jumpsuits, who gradually impinge on his space.
The dominant tone of this piece is a combination of intense sensuality and equally intense nostalgia that truly gets under your skin, whether or not you understand Spanish, such is the choreographer’s ability to create dance on the rhythms of the spoken word.
I hope to be able to see Javier de Frutos’s 98 Días many more times in the future, but I can’t say the same about Goyo Montero’s Llamada (Gesture). The Spanish choreographer is a favourite of Carlos Acosta’s. Resident Choreographer with Acosta Danza, he has also created for Carlos Acosta’s Birmingham Royal Ballet and for Acosta himself. I have enjoyed some of his previous pieces, including his jazzy, humorous 2023 piece Alrededor No Hay Nada.
There’s no humour at all, though, in the ponderous Llamada. Opening to ominous drum beats, it takes inspiration from flamenco and again from a Garcia Lorca poem to look at societal pressures for uniformity, in particular when it comes to sexual orientation. Overwrought, heavy-going and not particularly interesting, it was a bit of a downer with which to open the second part of the programme.
Mercifully, the programme ended with the sights, colours and vibrant energy of Cuba in Alexis Fernández’s De Punta a Cabo (From End to End). Set against a moving image of Havana’s waterfront, the world-famous Malecón, fourteen casually kitted out dancers, in trainers, barefoot and even in pointe shoes, danced through a mind-bogging array of styles, the languors of jazz giving way to the hip-swings and fast, intricate footwork of the salsa, impeccably turned ballet fouettés, and death-defying lifts and throws. As day pales into evening and night gives way to nascent dawn, they make it look like just a group of boisterous friends passing the time of day. Wonderful.
For a long time, Acosta Danza was a company of excellent dancers poorly served by bad choreography. It seems that, in general, that is no longer the case, which augurs well for the next decade.
Acosta Danza – Decade in Motion is at Sadler’s Wells from 23/09 to 27/09
Sadler’s Wells
Rosebery Avenue
London EC1R 4TN
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