In this new work from the celebrated Acosta Danza, the lush artistry of the Baroque period intersects with the energy, creativity and vibrancy of Cuban dance. Emerging from the 17th and 18th Centuries the creative movement was characterised by deep colour, elaborate detail and intricate decoration.

A brand-new premiere from Andonis Foniadakis journeys to the rhythmic heart of Baroque. Set to a live performance of Esteban Sallas’ Salve Regina, the piece explores the classic chaconne looping structure that circles through phases of acceleration, fracture and rebound. As the score shifts from Baroque lyricism toward Cuban drive, Foniadakis showcases the fusion between memory and contemporary.

Closing the programme is Goyo Montero’s powerful Chacona, a piece that was originally created for the Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballett during Montero’s 17-year tenure as director. Chacona is the final movement of Bach’s masterwork Partita No.2 in D Minor for violin, accompanied in this performance by guitar and piano. Physically and musically demanding, it requires total cohesion from the ensemble of 16 dancers. Classical in sound and contemporary in heart, this is mesmerising piece not to be missed.

About Acosta Danza

Acosta Danza was created by Carlos Acosta in 2015 to harness and develop the young creative dance talent emerging from Cuba. The ethos of the company is to produce dancers who combine Cuba’s rich musical and dance influences with both classical and contemporary genres and create exciting and stimulating repertoire that pushes conventional boundaries. Acosta Danza has worked with some of the world’s leading choreographers as well as encouraging the emergence and development of new choreography from among its own members. The company performed for the first time at the Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso in Cuba in April 2016 and has since performed extensively across Cuba, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Russia, South and North America to great critical acclaim, most recently winning the best mid-scale company at the National Dance Awards. During the last couple of years, former students from the Acosta Dance Academy in Havana have joined Acosta Danza following their intensive training programme created by Carlos. Acosta Danza is proud to be a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company. Acosta Danza is extremely grateful to its founder sponsor, Aud Jebsen, for her continued and unwavering support throughout our journey to date, as well as Sir Simon Robey, The Oak Foundation and Alan Howard for their continued support and with generous support of Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet.

Artistic Team & Credits

Artistic Director Carlos Acosta

Pearls

Choreography Andonis Foniadakis
Musical Composer Julien Tarride
Lighting Design Nicolas Fischtel
Costume Design Anastasios Sofroniou
Stager Pierre Magendie

The piece is built as a chaconne in the broadest sense: a looping architecture — almost a ground-bass logic — that keeps circling back to the same theme like a mantra, each return opening a new variation in colour, density and impulse. Its baroque core is explicit and sacred: the vocal writing and liturgical aura of Esteban Sallas’ Salve Regina (with its rhetoric, ornamentation and harmonic clarity) are treated not as quotation, but as living material. On stage, each recurrence becomes physical: a point of alignment where the body can gather, then break away again — accelerate, fracture, rebound.

The score gradually shifts its centre of gravity from baroque lyricism and choral resonance toward a contemporary, kinetic drive that resonates with Andonis Foniadakis’ choreography: fast, precise, and charged with sudden contrasts. The music is fundamentally live — carried by instrumentalists and voices — with only a hint of electronics as colour and support. Cuban rhythmic principles seep into the texture (clave, layered pulses, dance-derived momentum) and begin to tilt the baroque theme from within — bringing Sallas’ music fully into the present. The dance answers that tilt: long arcs of propulsion collide with sharp moves, suspensions and re-launches, as music and movement constantly negotiate who leads and who resists. In this dialogue, contrast becomes fusion: baroque memory meets Cuban propulsion; choral breath meets percussive drive; live sound meets a discreet electronic halo — shaping a single energetic trajectory that stays clear, intense, and emotionally resonant.

Andonis Foniadakis
Andonis Foniadakis grew up in the city of Ierapetra in Crete, Greece. He studied at the Greek National School of Dance in Athens and won a Maria Callas scholarship to study at the Rudra Bejart School, Lausanne. He served as Artistic Director of the Green National Ballet in Athens during the 2016/17 season and currently holds the position of Resident Choreographer with the company.

As a dancer, Andonis performed with Bejart Ballet Lausanne, Lyon Opera Ballet and Saburo Teshigawara/KARAS, and performed in works by choreographers including Maguy Marin, Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Dominique Boivin, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Maurice Bejart, Ohad Naharin, Frederic Flamand, Bill T. Jones, Herve Robbe, Tero Saarinen, Lionel Hoche, Joachim Scholmer, John Jasperse and Saburo Teshigawara.
In 2003, Andonis founded his own dance company, Apotosoma in Lyon, France. Since then, he has shown his work in France, Greece, Italy, Finland, Luxembourg, Germany, England and the USA.

As a freelance choreographer, he has collaborated with Martha Graham Dance Company, Sydney Dance Company, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Geneva Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Bern Ballet, Aterballetto, Ballet du Rhin, Maggio Danza, National Dance Company of Wales, Dansgroep Amsterdam, Bale Da Cidade of Sao Paolo, Brazli, Helsinki Dance Company, National Ballet of Greece, National Theatre of Northern Greece, Benjamin Millepied Dance Company, Washington Ballet, Israel Ballet, Chemnitz Ballet and Bejart Ballet Lausanne.

In 2014, Andonis was the movement coordinator for Darren Aronosfky’s film Noah for Paramount Pictures.

He created Symbiosis for Rambert Dance Company which premiered in 2017 at the Lowry Theatre, Salford, England. In 2018, Andonis staged Selon Desir for Royal Ballet Flanders and made new creations for the Greek National Ballet and Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal and Bolero for the Croatian National Ballet.

In 2019, Andonis staged Les Noces for the Compania Nacional de Danza in Madrid as part of the company’s 40th anniversary celebrations and created a new work, Paron, for Geneva Ballet which premiered 10th November. 2020-21 saw the creation of works for the Teatro Municipal Sao Paulo and for the Croatian National Ballet. During lockdown, Andonis virtually staged a pas de deux from Glory for dancers of Ekaterinburg Ballet for Bolshoi Ballet on Culture Channel, Russia which was broadcast in November, 2020.

In 2021, Geneva Ballet premiered Andonis’ new The Rite of Spring and in July, his Kosmos was performed by Staatsballett Hannover. During 2021/22, Andonis created new works for Tanzcompagnie Konzert Theater Bern as well for Mannheim Ballet.

2023 was a busy season with the creation of Primal Light, a full evening work for Tanz Theater Kassel in Germany. A week later, Philadelphia Ballet premiered Andonis’ Circumstellars and in March, Introdans in The Netherlands staged Selon Desir. Further creations in 2023 included Far Side for Basel Ballet and staging of works for the annual Moving Arts Festival in Cincinnati and Kansas City, USA.

In Spring 2024, Andonis created his first work, Strangelove, for Hong Kong Ballet as well as created Almyra for Gauthier Dance in Stuttgart and Bonds or Augsburg Ballet. In July, Gartner Platz Theatre, Munich presented the world premiere of Andonis’ Troja/Troy.

In 2025, Andonis created Death and the Maiden for Tanz Kassel and Ikarus, a new full evening work for Hannover Ballett and made his debut with Cincinnati Ballet in the USA in Summer 2025. His awards include the Danza e Danza Award for Best Choreographer in 2012 and in 2024/25 Germany’s Tanznetz Critics’ Survey voted Andonis #1 Choreographer of the Year.
Creations in 2025 included new works for Cincinnati Ballet, Bejart Ballet and Braunsweig Ballet in Germany.

In January, 2026, Zurich Ballet premiered Andonis’s latest creation, Orbit and later in the year he will create for Hong Kong Ballet and Acosta Danza, among others.

Julien Tarride
Julien Tarride, born in 1979 in France, is both a composer and visual artist. His work combines perfoming arts with new technologies such as music and generated scores as well as video and 3D computer-based images. His music is mostly inspired by classical and contemporary music, musique concrète, electronic and American repetitive music. Since 2002, Julien Tarride has worked as a composer and stage designer for the choreographers Andonis Foniadakis (close collaborator), Benjamin Millepied, Davy Brun, Aurélien Dougé, Andrew Skeels, Ken Ossola. He has also contributed to many other artists’ work: composers, visual artists, writers and film makers, such as for Leo Carax (music and sound design for ‹Holly Motors› in 2012). At Theater Basel, he will create the music for Andonis Foniadaki’s new creation in the season 22/23 as part of the Double Bill dance evening ‹Explosiv!›.

Chacona

Choreographer and Set Design Goyo Montero
Created in 2011 for Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballett
Music J.S.Bach
Costume Design Verena Hemmerlein and Goyo Montero
Lighting Design Goyo Montero and Nicolas Fischtel
Stagers Ivan Delgado del Rio and Carlos Lazaro

This piece is the conclusion of a Full length work VASOS COMUNICANTES that was created on this version for the company I directed for over 17 years, Staatstheater Nürnberg Ballett.

The piece is strongly built around the musical masterwork of Bach, the Chacona for the Violin Partita n2 for Violin Solo and combines that with the versions for Guitar and Piano.
It is a reflection about individual and group energies, connection and disruption and it is a challenge both physically and musically and it works only if the group energy is total but maintaining and enhancing the diversity and differences within the unity.

About working with Acosta Danza : This is going to be the fourth collaboration with Acosta Danza since 2015.To bring this work to them and adapt it to their fearless and exceptional talents is something I am extremely looking forward to. To restage this early work and revisit it for them will develop the work further and keep it alive, relevant and ever changing, a choreographer’s dream!

Goyo Montero
Montero was born in Madrid in 1975. He initially trained with Carmen Roche and at the Royal Conservatory of Professional Dance in Madrid and then completed his training at the Cuban National Ballet School under the direction of Alicia Alonso.

His extensive career as a dancer began at the age of 17 in the English National Ballet and continued later as a soloist at the Leipzig Opera, in the ballet of the Hessian State Theatre Wiesbaden, in the Royal Ballet of Flanders and as first soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Among the honours he has received in his career as a dancer are the “Prix de Lausanne” in 1994 and the Grand Prix and Gold Medal of the “Luxembourg International Dance Competition” in 1996. Critics from Dance Europe Magazine nominated him as “Best Dancer” of the 2003/2004 season.

In 2011, the Spanish Ministry of Culture honoured the choreographer and dancer with the “Premio Nacional de Danza” in the interpretation category.

As choreographer, Goyo Montero has created 25 productions for his company, the Staatsballett Nürnberg, and has also created for companies such as the Royal Ballet London, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Ballett am Rhein , Acosta Danza , Finish National Ballet , Ballet del Teatro Colon-Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo Compania de Danza, Perm Opera Ballet/Diana Vishneva Context Festival, Ballet Nacional de Sodre – Uruguay, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Cuban National Ballet , Teatro di la Opera de Roma , Ankara State Ballet among others . Goyo Montero has a long-standing relationship with the Prix de Lausanne: as a regular member of the jury, choreographer and artistic director of two choreographic projects (2018 and 2023) with selected students from the Prix de Lausanne’s partner schools (premières of “Pulse” and “Bold”).

He has been honoured with numerous awards for his choreographies, including the “Villa de Madrid” prize, 1st prize in the Ibero-American Choreography Competition, the “Villanueva” prize (awarded by the UNEAC Association of Cuban Authors and Journalists), the “Teatro de Madrid” prize and, as a dancer and choreographer, the “Premio Nacional de Danza” from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Goyo Montero was honoured with the Cultural Prize of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Central Franconia (2009) and the Bavarian Culture Prize (2014). As DIRECTOR, Goyo Montero has 17 years of experience in directing the Nuremberg State Ballet, the second largest ballet company in Bavaria that he directed from 2008 till 2025. Under his direction, the Nuremberg State Theatre Ballet has received numerous awards. In 2018, the company under ballet director Goyo Montero was honoured with the German Dance Award in the “Current” category for “outstanding development in dance”. Also in 2018 Goyo Montero was voted best ballet director in the “Dance Europe” critics’ poll.

In 2023, Goyo Montero received the “Pro meritis scientiae et litterarum” award from the Bavarian State Minister for Science and the Arts, one of the highest honours bestowed by the cultural state of Bavaria in recognition of outstanding personalities for their services to science and the arts. From the 2025/2026 season Montero is the Director of the Staatsballett Hannover.

Performers
Frank Isaac
Paul Brando
Alexander Arias
Aniel Pazos
Ernesto Muñoz
Rolando Dieguez
Miguel Gomez
Amado Mancebo

Thalía Cardín
Melisa Moreda
Daniella Urgelles
Cynthia Laffertte
Ofelia Rodríguez
Wendy Elizabeth
Carolina Monteagudo
María Del Carmen Pantoja

Musicians
Pepe Gavilondo
Ezo Sarici
Adrian Aguiar

Production Managers David Pritchard & Douglas Nicholson
Technical Director Pedro Benitez
Stage Manager Eduardo Peon
Sound Engineer Danill Massip
Production Sound Paul Delaney
Lighting Programmer Sammy Emmins
Wardrobe Manager Yunet Uranga
Footwear Manager Emma Campbell

Rehearsal Director Yaday Ponce
Company Manager Rayselis Rodriguez
Physiotherapist Iskander Cobas

Executive Producer Rupert Rohan
Producer Anne-Louise Hawker
Digital Marketing Fizz Woor
Production Assistant Nadine Quercia
Touring Assistant Isabelle Smith
Financial Controller Robert Davage
Financial Assistant Rebecca Ridgers