Carlos Acosta weighs into ballet-hoo over Sergei Polunin

 
25 July 2013

Sergei Polunin walked out of the Royal Ballet and then quit a production of Midnight Express at the Coliseum just days before the first night. Now Carlos Acosta, principal guest artist at the Royal Ballet, is urging his young Ukrainian rival to leave the stage altogether if he can’t respect its traditions.

Cuban-born Acosta, who marks his 40th birthday by performing his most famous dances at the Coliseum next week, cannot understand why Polunin, 23, claimed to have “fallen out of love” with his art at such a young age.

“It would be crazy to fall out of love with ballet,” Acosta tells me. “Even though it has its frustrations, there’s nothing that can compare with the moment when you are onstage and you are able to produce for an audience. Our job is also interconnected with a whole company, it’s not like playing the piano where you have an individual relationship with your instrument. It’s always good to respect people and your art.

“If you fall out of love with ballet, then you shouldn’t do it. You should ask yourself why you are doing it in the first place. Is it for the money, or are you doing it just to be rich? You have to love it in order to keep doing it, otherwise why bother?”

Of Polunin’s walkouts, he says: “I don’t think that’s the way to go. That’s not the tradition we have inherited. The people who came before us had tremendous commitment. I was always taught to respect my art.

“You jump, you leap and you twist an ankle — you have that sense that in a blink it could be gone and that’s what makes it even more precious. You have to love it in order to keep doing it, otherwise why bother?”

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