Birmingham Royal Ballet has announced the launch of its new company BRB2 which will be visiting Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on Saturday 24 June 2023 as part of its inaugural UK tour with Carlos Acosta's Classical Selection.

Tickets are on sale to Friends of the Grand and members now. Public sales for tickets opens at 10am on Friday 20 January.

BRB2 is a new initiative where BRB pro-actively seeks out some of the best young ballet graduates from around the world to join a two-year performance programme, providing vital employment for the next generation of exceptional ballet dancers, (aged 18-22) to transition from training into jobs at BRB or other leading ballet companies, impacting the dance sector worldwide.

It will act as a magnet for the best UK and international talent, providing extensive training and professional experience, sending developed, professional dancers back into the dance sector and providing role models for the next generation. BRB2 is inspired by Dutch National Ballet Junior Company and ABT Studio Company.

The BRB2 dancers will not only train and perform with the whole Birmingham Royal Ballet company in major productions, but they will also develop their own touring programme, supported by senior members of BRBs ballet staff.

In most ballet companies new joiners and artists can spend years working their way up to dancing principal roles; this showcase puts the spotlight on the new talent in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s ranks in an exciting, crowd-pleasing and challenging way. In this first year six of the company are current BRB dancers and six the founding group of BRB2.  In 2024, the founders will graduate and, in their second year, be joined by six new dancers – providing an ongoing platform for brilliant young talent to be showcased across the UK.

The programme for the 2023 UK tour includes: Pas de Deux from: Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody - premiered at the Royal Ballet in 1980 by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lesley Collier, Collier herself will be rehearsing the BRB2 duo who will perform this piece; August Bournonville’s most famous ballet La Sylphide; the love duet from Swan Lake - probably the most famous pas de deux in ballet; Carlos Acosta’s take on Fokine’s The Dying Swan which features two dancers instead of one (hence The Dying Swans plural)  and is double the usual length; Marius Petipa’sDiana and Actaeon pas de deux; Ben Stevenson’s End of Time set to Rachmaninoff’s gloriously melancholic Sonata in G Minor (3rd movement).

In the second half Gustavo Mollajoli’s A Buenos Aires celebrates the spirit of tango to music by Astor Piazzolla; the iconic Edith Piaf’s Je ne regrette rien choreographed by Ben Van Cauwenbergh, whose Jacques Brel-inspired humorous gala piece Les Bourgeois will also feature. Acosta’s choreography for the Carmen pas de deux promises to raise the temperature with Bizet’s heat-seeking score and Will Tuckett’s solo Nisi Dominus will reinstate some sense of calm to proceedings before Jorges Garcia’s Majisimo closes out the programme, performed to Massenet’s music from Le Cid.

Tickets for BRB2 - Carlos Acosta's Classical Selection at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on Saturday 24 June are on sale to Friends of the Grand and members now. Public sales for tickets opens at 10am on Friday 20 January at grandtheatre.co.uk.