Birmingham Royal Ballet 2025-2026 Season, Shows, Reviews

January 1, 2020 - Updated on July 7, 2025

Birmingham Royal Ballet

♦ Location: Birmingham, West Midlands – England

♦ Artistic Director: Carlos Acosta

♦ Orchestra: Royal Ballet Sinfonia

♦ Affiliated School: Elmhurst Ballet School

♦ Founded in 1946 by Dame Ninette de Valois as Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. It was later known as Touring Company of The Royal Ballet (1956) and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (1977) before changing to its current name 1990 when the company moved to Birmingham.

♦ Official Website of Birmingham Royal Ballet

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Birmingham Royal Ballet 2025-2026 Season

The Birmingham Royal Ballet 2025-2026 Season was announced by Artistic Director Carlos Acosta along with details about the company’s summer tour in Japan where they will perform Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya.

The company will be included at the Osaka Expo in July with an exhibition of photos by Clive Booth, inspired by the Company’s research into the effects of Relative Energy Deficiency in dancers.

“Following the Company’s most successful Nutcracker season ever, preparations for our spring 2025 tour of Cinderella are well underway but already we are looking ahead and I am so happy to announce the return of two of the more recent jewels in BRB’s crown, Black Sabbath – The Ballet and Don Quixote.

Amongst many achievements, these productions are two of which I am possibly most proud as I mark five years with the Company. I continue to honour the memory of my close collaborator and CEO Caroline Miller in my first season without her at my side, and we all remain positive and excited about what lies ahead.”

Carlos Acosta, Artistic Director of Royal Birmingham Ballet

The season will begin where the 2024-2025 ends, with Black Sabbath – The Ballet returning to home turf at the Birmingham Hippodrome before it hits the road to Salford, Plymouth, London, and Edinburgh. The creative team for this production which premiered to sold-out audiences in autumn of 2023 includes Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidburg, Cuban designer Alexandre Arrechea, and Tony Award winning composer Christopher Austin. Additional choreography is by Raúl Reinoso and Cassi Abranches, music is composed by Marko Nyberg and Sun Keting, the dramaturgy done by Richard Thomas, and lighting design by KJ.

Tracks re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia featured in the full-length, three-act ballet are:

Paranoid (Paranoid, 1970)
Ironman (Paranoid, 1970)
War Pigs (Paranoid, 1970)
Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath, 1970)
Solitude (Master of Reality, 1971)
Orchid (Master of Reality, 1971)
Laguna Sunrise (Vol 4, 1972)
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973)

(Read a review of Black Sabbath – The Ballet performed at The Kennedy Center.)

2025 will close with Sir Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker in London after opening in later November in Birmingham.

Then, the first program for 2026 will continue in celebration with the Sir Peter Wright Centenary on February 18th. Featured on the program of the great choreographer’s works will be Kurt Jooss’s The Green Table which Birmingham Royal Ballet hasn’t performed since the early 1990s.

Carlos Acosta’s 5-Year Anniversary

Acosta’s fifth year as Artistic Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet is fittingly commemorated in the spring of 2026 with his production of Don Quixote. The UK tour will include Birmingham, Salford, Sunderland, Plymouth, and Southampton. In the summer, it will return to the Royal Opera House in London as part of the theatre’s summer season.

In June 2026, the 20th-Century Masterpieces triple-bill with feature Jooss’ The Green Table, George Balanchine‘s Theme and Variations, and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Birthday Offering.

BRB2, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s second company, will tour in spring of 2026. The Carlos Acosta’s Ballet Celebration program will include highlights from Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes’ The Firebird, Spectre de la Rose, Les Sylphides, and Scheherazade.

Birmingham Royal Ballet Promotions and New Dancers for the 2025-2026 Season

On July 4, 2025, Artistic Director Carlos Acosta announced the promotions that will take in effect for next season:

Yu Kurihara is promoted to Principal;
Enrique Bejarano Vidal is promoted to First Soloist;
Javier Rojas, Ryan Felix and Yuki Sugiura are promoted to First Artist.
Daria Stanciulescu becomes Principal Character Artist.

Rory Mackay and Jonathan Payn become Repetiteurs from the start of next seasonas well as continue as Principal Character Artists.

“I’m so proud to announce our supremely well-deserved promotions, excited to welcome the new dancers who are joining the Company and I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who are moving on to pastures new.”

– Carlos Acosta

Joining BRB in 2025 are:

Katherine Ochoa (from Cincinnati Ballet) as First Soloist;
Rafael Bejarano Vidal (from Washington Ballet);
Amber Cook (Elmhurst Ballet School);
Tobi Johnson (Kate Simmons Dance);
Airi Kaboyashi (Royal Ballet School Prix de Lausanne dancer);
Thomas Kujawa (Elmhurst Ballet School);
Oisin Middleton (freelance), Samantha Paige (Tring Park);
Gillian Whittall (freelance);
BRB2 alumni Alisa Garkavenko, Alexandra Manuel and Tom Hazelby as Artists.

Joining BRB2 are Yasemin Kayabay (Royal Ballet School), Yoli Meurisse (ENB School) and John Fontanini (Princess Grace Academy). Marlo Kempsey-Fagg also joins BRB2 following his year as Elmhurst Apprentice. Alfie-Lee Hall will be next season’s Elmhurst Apprentice.

Birmingham Royal Ballet Departures at the End of the 2024-2025 Season

The following dancers will be leaving BRB for other opportunities:

Jack Easton and Shuailun Wu are moving to Berlin Staatsballet;
Oscar Kempsey-Fagg is moving to Bayersisches Staatsballet;
Callum Findlay-White and Tessa Hogge are moving to Oklahoma City Ballet;
Gus Payne is joining Sarasota Ballet as a Soloist.

Also leaving to pursue other opportunities are: Yvette Knight, Regan Hutsell, Ariana Allen and Hamish Scott.

Rachele Pizzillo is taking a sabbatical and dancing with Cincinnati Ballet for the 2025/26 season.

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Beatrice Parma Honored at National Dance Awards

A Principal Dancer with BRB since 2024, Beatrice Parma was announced the winner of “Outstanding Female Classic Performance” for her role as Lise in La Fille mal gardée at the 2025 National Dance Awards, a prestigious recognition presented in the United Kingdom by The Critics’ Circle.

Source: Royal Birmingham Ballet