Cuban roots calling

Carlos Acosta's rise to ballet fame is a Hollywood fantasy waiting to happen: a poor boy from Cuba, the youngest of 11 from a Havana barrio and headed for a life of petty crime, dances out of the ghetto to become the darling of the dance world thanks to his mighty leaps and dazzling charm. It's Billy Elliot for the Latino audience.

Except that, in his dressing room at Covent Garden, strewn with skimpy costumes for Apollo and his other starring roles with the Royal Ballet, Acosta is adding a surprising twist to his rags to riches tale. Though only 30 and at the peak of his considerable physical powers, he's laying plans for the future that take him back to his roots.

'I'm at a stage where I'm deciding what I need to do. I'm not going to be a ballet dancer forever and, anyway, how many times can you repeat the same roles? Ballet stories all seem a bit similar after a while, so I need to stretch my creativity.'

That stretch comes with Tocororo - A Cuban Tale, Acosta's choreographic debut and a show that's a world away from ballet's rarefied confines.

'It's a musical and it's fun. There's rap and a live band on stage and it's mainly for people to have a good time - it's got that Cuban flavour that's been missing from the world stage.

'It's like a test for myself to see if I'll be able to tell a story - it's not that I'm suddenly the world's great choreographic genius. I am on a journey of self-discovery with this show and it's a big risk but I don't mind, it's always been my nature - if I do something it has to be from the heart.'

So, is he reacting against the discipline of ballet? 'In a way, it's about that. I wanted to make a show that would bring a lot of different people into the theatre - and if it takes off it could go to Broadway. In Cuba, it was a big hit - Fidel Castro came to the opening - but, of course, it's a Cuban thing. London is a tester for how it could play in the rest of the world.'

Charting the story of a boy who leaves his country life to chance his arm in the big city, it's not hard to trace Acosta's own tale in Tocororo. 'It's kind of autobiographical, but it's more a way of trying to express the essence of Cuba: the rumba, the dominoes, the whole lifestyle and soul of the place. To capture that spirit, Acosta has lined up star performers from Cuba's national contemporary, ballet and folkdance companies in a fusion of styles that gives his dance imagination free rein.

'I wanted to do hip hop and all kinds of dance on stage. With ballet there's no room to do anything else.' Not that Ascota is ungrateful for the opportunities that ballet, allied to his prodigious athletic talent, have created for him.

'At the start, my father forced me to do it - he was worried I'd end up a criminal in a gang.

I hated it at the National Ballet school and I got expelled twice - but when I saw the Cuban National Ballet perform I knew I wanted to dance.