Description
Seismograph of the soul: There is a good reason why Akram Khan is known as a defining pacemaker of our time. After all, few choreographers have such a keen sense of the human psyche. Few, too, who sound the hidden depths as thoroughly as he does. Especially as Akram Khan – and this is what makes his work stand out – always puts dance in very specific contexts. Whether it be the First World War in XENOS, the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic in Outwitting the Devil, premiered at the COLOURS Festival 2019, or most recently nature ravaged by the climate crisis with Jungle Book reimagined.
Now the British choreographer and company director Akram Khan has worked with Gauthier Dance for the first time ‒ the intensive creation was spread over almost three seasons. The title Turning of Bones not only alludes to a ritual of remembrance practised mainly in Madagascar – Famadihana, where people take the remains of their ancestors, wrapped in cloth, out of the graves to reconnect with their heritage. They rewrite the names on the shrouds, carry the bones over their heads and dance with them. Famadihana could also describe the approach to this production, in which Akram Khan immerses himself in the history of his own choreographic works.
The source material consisted of five of his classics, which he had created for himself as a dancer or for Akram Khan Company. They share one message: blindness and arrogance cause mankind to make the same mistakes throughout history. For Turning of Bones, Khan drew on Vertical Road from 2010, the group piece iTMOi (In the Mind of Igor), created in 2013 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps as well as Jungle Book reimagined. Also included is the striking „head dance“ from DESH about his father's homeland, Bangladesh, and the poignant piece Mud of Sorrow, digitally premiered during the height of the pandemic in the winter of 2021. All these elements have been further developed and tailored to the new overall structure of Turning of Bones.
On an emotional level, they are not only linked by the original music by Aditya Prakash. Above all, there is a narrative framework that connects the scenes to form a new whole. It is the tale of two lovers who are tragically confronted with the theme of sacrifice and being sacrificed.
In contrast to the elaborate stage designs and settings of the original versions, Akram Khan was aiming for a completely different, more abstract mood for the evening, placing dance and pure emotion at the centre. For this uncompromising, truly challenging approach, he could not only rely on Gauthier Dance as an ideally matched company. A final two-week residency at the wonderful Orsolina 28 Art Foundation in Moncalvo (Piedmont) provided the perfect environment for the focussed rehearsals ahead of the premiere ...
