Panther of the Royal Ballet

Carlos Acosta is a most unlikely ballet star. The youngest of 11 children growing up in a poor, rough quarter of Havana, he aspired to be a professional soccer player. He'd never even heard of ballet, he says, until the day his parents told him they were sending him to ballet school to keep him from becoming a juvenile delinquent. Now 28 and a principal dancer turned guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London, Acosta is acclaimed as "the new Baryshnikov" and described as a panther for his...