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Akram Khan: A Fierce Energy Derived from Stillness written by Philip Szporer
In a world moving so fast, stillness is often presented as antithetical to speed. With Akram Khan, his fierce spins, angled gestures, and the sublime articulation of hands, fingers and feet and his moments of soft repose astonish and enthrall. His dancing displays an enigmatic beauty, but the key to the puzzle lies in the energy and inspiration he draws from his source. Immersion in contemporary dance would follow, but Khan is schooled in the 500-year old northern-Indian classical dance form called kathak. Muslim invaders of India adopted this Hindu temple ritual in the tenth century, and these rulers were looking for forms of entertainment in their courts to better correspond with their more secular tastes. The name derives from kathakar, the traditional storytellers or bards who, taking from both the Hindu and Islamic narratives, recited the sagas of contemporary heroes and commented upon current events and recounted the lore of Hindu mythology. Kathak male solo artists danced, sang, and narrated these tales of the gods’ and goddesses’ exploits. The sophisticated court dance expressed power through its pirouettes, intricate patterns, and technical virtuosity, particularly displayed in lightning footwork and turns, and remarkable feats with ankle bells. While kathak is narrative, Khan himself was more influenced by the abstract aspect of the dance, gathering its powerful energy into the structure of his work, leading him to dance with “ex-
Akram Khan photo by Rankin
©
T lay arc B ne Irvi
“Vertical Road” photo by Laurent Ziegler
treme speeds of chaos.” Born in 1974 in “the melting pot” of Balhum, in South London, to Bangladeshi parents, Khan has described himself as an “energetic, volatile kid”. Because he needed to be occupied, his culturallyinclined mother pushed him into studying Bengali folk dancing at the age of three at London’s Academy of Indian Dance. Then, when he was seven, he trained under the tutelage of the renowned British-based kathak guru Sri Pratap Pawar. Khan became the master’s prodigy. In that environment, he couldn’t question authority, and later admitted the practice became “claustrophobic” and “the pressure… suffocating”. Between those sessions of immersion, he grew up like most children of his generation watching Tom and Jerry cartoons, but seeing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” transformed him, recognizing in the singer-dancer an artist who was a man of colour. Khan initially made a name for himself in the theatre world as a young boy of 10 touring in The Adventures of Mowgli. With his virtuosi abilities, he was cast at 14 in Peter Brook’s the Mahabharata, the stage play of the epic poem. With Brook, he learned
Akram Khan Company
“Vertical Road”
October 10, 2012 at 8pm www.akramkhancompany.net
IRVINE
BARCLA Y THEATRE
www.thebarclay.org
to go to the source and eliminate the extraneous. Later, he entered a university degree program to assuage his parents. Though rather than enroll in law or medicine, he embarked on his first full immersion into the world of Western contemporary dance, throwing up flares not only for his parents but his kathak master as well. He “ran away”, he says, ultimately studying at De Montfort University, then at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. Arriving early for his audition, he viewed, by chance, videos of the Brit-
IRVINEBARCLAYPRESENTS the 2012-13 International Contemporary Dance Series