BRB’s Luna Honors Birmingham Women – Culture Whisper

Since becoming Artistic Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) in 2020, Carlos Acosta has worked to strengthen the ties between the company and the city it calls home, with stage works that showcase Birmingham, its history and its people.

He came first City of a thousand deals (2021), which focuses on the many immigrant workers from all parts of the Commonwealth who came to the city in the 19th century and whose labor contributed to Birmingham’s prosperity.

Then Black Sabbath – The Ballet (2023), a visual extravaganza in which one of Birmingham’s biggest exports, BRB, showcases the work of another heavy metal band, Black Sabbath

To complete the trilogy, we now have Moon.

It must have seemed like a good idea: let’s pay tribute to the resilient women of Birmingham with a production that brought together five female choreographers, one female composer and an all-female technical team.

Also, let’s build a social/educational element by recruiting 30 youngsters aged eight to 12 to perform as a children’s choir in Moonproviding them with the physical and mental health benefits of singing.

The problem is that laudable intentions don’t necessarily translate into good art, and to put it bluntly, Moon is very far from good.

Not all of it is disastrous, but a lot of it is catastrophic. After a sweetly performed song by the children’s choir (they will return at regular intervals with tiring ditties of positive affirmation), scene I of six is ​​”Terra” by Dutch choreographer Wubkje Kuindersma. Against a projection of the moon – the female deity – eight couples dance a well-structured, harmonious piece, relying on lifts and waves of movement.

BRB artists at Wubkje Kuindersma’s Terra. Photo: Katya Ogrin

This perfectly pleasant piece also introduces the singers who will appear in the following sections: the soprano Marianna Hovhannesian and the impressive baritone Themba Mvula.

It’s all downhill from there. Seeta Patel’s Learning to Dream Big is a frankly ridiculous piece about five women based on the benefits of education. There’s a lot of clutching of illuminated books, a lot of clucking, jumping and forced childish glee, the piece going nowhere except, alas, at great length.

Cuban-born choreographer Tais Suarez’s Unwavering is supposed to be about the triumph of women over adversity, but why it should be part of (Foret’s) Requiem is anyone’s guess. BRB’s director, Beatrice Parma, puts on an amazing show, presenting terrible choreography that requires regular stretches of up to six hours and splayed legs in the air, mostly crotches.

She returns later in another unusual piece, this one by Spanish choreographer Irache Ansa. Entitled ‘Overexposed’, it is in more ways than one. Parma is joined by eight male dancers, bandaged as refugees from The invisible man (costume design by Imaan Ashraf).

Beatrice Parma and artists from BRB in Overexposed by Iratxe Ansa. Photo: Katya Ogrin

And so it does, although in Act II the gloomy mood is somewhat lightened by Ariel Smith’s “Empowerment” (pictured above). Smith is never less interesting, and while not among her most memorable works, this section for eight women in fluttering earth-colored skirts is a no-nonsense, elegant piece of dancing.

A word of endless praise must go to the BRB dancers, all of whom executed this mostly dubious material with admirable skill and dedication. One of the stars in this rating belongs to them.