Eighteen ballet dancers in pointe shoes stretch and preen in front of the mirrored walls of a vast dance studio. Someone presses a button on a tablet and suddenly a loud, growling guitar riff fills the studio followed by Ozzy Osbourne’s plaintive voice: “Has he lost his mind?”
It’s a good question, and one that can be applied equally to superstar ballet dancer and choreographer Carlos Acosta, director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and to Tony Iommi, founding member of Black Sabbath and the man widely credited with inventing heavy metal. Those two less-than-likely bedfellows have come together for Black Sabbath: The Ballet, one of those ideas which, on paper, hovers between derangement and genius.
