'The first heavy metal dance experience': Black Sabbath ballet coming to Birmingham
The Guardian|February 08, 2023
A ballet soundtracked by the music of Black Sabbath will premiere in September, Birmingham Royal Ballet's director, Carlos Acosta, has announced.
Lyndsey Winship
'The first heavy metal dance experience': Black Sabbath ballet coming to Birmingham

Billed as "the world's first heavy metal dance experience", the threeact ballet will feature eight songs by the Birmingham band, including Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs and the eponymous Black Sabbath, re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia - with added drums and electric guitars. The rest of the score will be newly composed, inspired by the band's music.

Ever since the Cuban ballet star Acosta joined Birmingham Royal Ballet as artistic director in 2020, his aim has been for the company to reflect its home city in the diversity of its dancers and the subject matter of its ballets. They previously staged City of a Thousand Trades, about Birmingham's history of immigration and industry.

"Black Sabbath is probably Birmingham's biggest export, the most famous, and infamous, cultural entity to ever emerge from the city," said Acosta, "so I was naturally drawn to the idea of a collaboration between what most people might think are the most unlikely of partners."

This story is from the February 08, 2023 edition of The Guardian.

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This story is from the February 08, 2023 edition of The Guardian.

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