© Harper Collins Jeffery Taylor review of the Carlos Acosta book Carlos Acosta Interviews on Ballet.co March 2005 November 1998 Acosta in reviews recent RB reviews Simonetta Dixon reviews

No Way Home – A Cuban Dancer’s Story by Carlos Acosta does just that; it leaves us with a lasting impression of who he is and is not. The book begins with Acosta’s difficult and at times unhappy childhood in the Los Pinos area of Havana, and ends with him premiering his autobiographical ‘Tocororo’ at Sadlers Wells theatre in London. What happens in between is quite a story…his strict and frightening father imposing his will on the young ‘Yuli’ to go to ballet school, whereas all Carlos wanted to do was be a footballer. The very perceptive Acosta senior not only looked upon ballet as a way out of trouble for his young son, but seemed to have an inner understanding of the boy’s talent and thus his potential for escaping a Cuba where people go short of basic supplies on a depressingly regular basis. Pedro Acosta had to beat this understanding into his errant son, who was hanging out with the local low-lifes and stealing from his neighbours.

Slowly, it dawns on young Yuli that he is actually quite good at this ballet lark, and that he can soar and jump and become someone else whilst he is dancing. Like Billy Elliott, he learned to release pent up anger through movement. His teachers, for some of whom Acosta still holds much affection and respect (with the exception of those at his first school who sneered at his looks and made no secret of the fact that they thought he should return to the streets with the other street kids who stank like he did), soon realised that this boy was special and began to prepare him for foreign exchanges and competitions….and thus his name began to be known inside Cuba and abroad. It was when he won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne gold medal that his career went in an upward direction. Ben Stevenson of Houston Ballet mentored him and was the first to offer him a contract, although Acosta spent a year at English National Ballet before injury forced him to quit and return to Cuba, where he spent a year without dancing before finally going to Houston. He was happy enough there, and in love, but when an offer came from the Royal Ballet to join them, he leaped at the chance to be a principal dancer with one of the world’s foremost companies. His description of breaking the news of his departure to Stevenson is very moving.

When he first joins the RB he has to be firm in what he will or will not dance. He joined as a principal so refuses to be cast in roles that would denigrate his status. He also makes clear throughout the book that he wants to prove that he is not only a feral being; he is also Siegfried, Albrecht, Florimund, Romeo. “One day everyone will see the prince inside Carlos Acosta”, he says, and one gets the feeling that he means this as much about himself as his stage characters.

 

Acosta’s life so far can be encapsulated in the two photographs on the book’s dust jackets: on the back, the serious, frightened-looking boy (and the only existing photo of Acosta in his pre-ballet days), on the front the beautiful, lusty star known far and wide. However, the book makes clear in a very endearing way that the boy within has not faded like the photo of the boy without. Acosta recounts his story with an almost childlike honesty, whether he is sharing with us his experiences of hormonally charged young love and sexual awakening, his younger years as a tearaway, or his feelings of not belonging anywhere anymore. One gets the feeling that the young boy within will always be there for the superstar to cling onto when he needs to remember who he is and where he has come from, even if he can never go back there. Some of us jettison our past and some of us simply lose it. Acosta keeps his close to his heart, because his past has truly defined his present. His love for his family is what has kept him going through all the difficult times in his life…times when he has felt lonely, isolated because he didn’t speak the language, not accepted because of where he came from, different because of his skin colour, having to start again in a different country, and let down in love. The love and closeness of his family is the most poignant aspect of this book, and by the end of it Acostas junior and senior understand and respect each other more than ever; the dedication refers to the father as “one of the greatest men I have ever known”.

This autobiography is much more about Acosta the man than Acosta the dancer. Dance is the conduit via which he is still discovering who he is. In order to feel like he belongs and to make him feel at home, one of the first things he does when he is in a new place is seek out the Cuban community there; when there isn’t one he is disappointed and lost. Whom Acosta is not is the prancing, preening young man he became for a while when the paychecks started getting fat, but he had to go through this stage to realize that expensive watches and designer suits are meaningless if they are just a disguise.

Of course he writes about the difficulty of being a professional dancer…the hard work, the insecurities, the injuries, the moving from place to place, the knowledge that your career will be short. He also writes of the joy of dance, which roles he likes or those that hold a special place in his heart. Yes, he could have gone into the artistic side of things in more depth, but perhaps that is for another book.

Like most autobiographies, No Way Home is not great literature, but it is written with honesty, wit and pathos. Although Acosta’s spectacular talent cannot be imparted by the pages of a book (and he is modest about his talent), what can be brought home to his readers is the humility of one who knows how lucky he is to have been blessed with his gift…although that blessing has come with the price tag of rootlessness and the feeling that, even if he eventually returns to Cuba, there will never again be a way home…this prince has travelled too far to go back.