When BRB director Carlos Acosta announced the new ballet Black Sabbath, the spotlight turned on Birmingham as both the dance and the music world wondered what on earth was happening.

Premiered this week at Birmingham Hippodrome, the result is a kaleidoscope of sound, movement and emotion which creates a blend of dance and music giving a new perspective to both.

The work isn’t a story relating the history of Black Sabbath, instead being more like an impressionist artwork, taking the essence of the band and instilling it into three acts of movement and dance.

With the production forming part of BRB’s ongoing Ballet Now project, Black Sabbath brings together a team of choreographers and composers working on the different acts so that the production forms both a triple bill of disparate works and a full-length ballet holding the three together.

Black Sabbath fans won’t be disappointed, as the work features a string of hits - including Paranoid, War Pigs, Iron Man, Black Sabbath and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - while also showing the band in a more contemplative mood in tracks like Solitude and Orchid. However with orchestration by a team led by composer & musical supervisor Christopher Austin, much of the music is blended and mixed so that it remains recognisable but also takes on new nuances within the piece.

The Royal Ballet Sinfonia rise to the challenge, giving a sweeping performance of the music while guitarist Marc Hayward provides the riffs as a character on stage.

Each of the three acts lasts half an hour and takes us into different elements of the band’s characters, experiences and impact. In Act One, Heavy Metal Ballet, choreographer Raúl Reinoso and composers Marko Nyberg and Christopher Austin introduce us to the music and the adulation this inspires.

Act Two, The Band, composed by Sun Keting and choreographed by Cassi Abranches, focuses more on the personalities, featuring narrated stories by band members Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi, as well as reflections by Ozzy’s wife Sharon. The frustration here is that some of these are hard to hear, drowned out by the music.

And the final act, Everybody Is A Fan, composed by Austin and choreographed by lead choreographer Pontus Lidberg, brings the themes together, with the dancers from the previous acts returning and joining in a frenetic and joyous celebration. At press night, the audience was also treated to a special guest appearance by Tony Iommi, who has been heavily involved in the project, on guitar.

One of the huge benefits of the piece is that it provides different dancers across the company with the opportunity to shine - from a series of mini solos in the first act, through to some tender but intricate pas de deux featuring Tyrone Singleton with Céline Gittens and Javier Rojas with Yaoqian Shang.

Furthermore, we discover some hidden talents within the company - it turns out that principal dancer Lachlan Monaghan is also an impressive singer, and holds the stage with a solo.

Alexandre Arrechea’s stage designs are full of heavy-metal imagery, including a huge, silver, upturned car and demon figure. KJ’s lighting adds a great deal to the production, spotlighting dancers and throwing them into dark and shadow as they move across the stage.

Directed by Acosta, Black Sabbath is very much a ballet for today. By bringing together heavy metal and classical ballet, it shows how the arts can work together, combining completely different genres to create something entirely new.

The interest from media and fans across the world has been immense, with the show selling out in days. And to see dance enthusiasts side-by-side with T-shirt-wearing metal fans, on their feet applauding the show, proves the idea is more than simply a headline-grabber.

Black Sabbath - The Ballet firmly plants BRB as a company prepared to stick its neck out, successfully creating the unexpected and pushing the boundaries of dance and performance. It begs the question – what next?

Four stars

Reviewed by Diane Parkes at Birmingham Hippodrome on Wednesday 27 September. Black Sabbath - The Ballet continues to show at the venue until Saturday 30 September.

Note: Tony Iommi will not be featured in every performance and there are currently no other plans for more appearances.