Dance Review

Akram Khan Company

By Patricia Boccadoro

PARIS, 5 April 2004—What many try to do, he just does. Akram Khan, the young Anglo-Indian choreographer, seems to explode spontaneously on stage, releasing a communicative life-giving energy.

His first full-length work, Kaash, created in 2002, and modified since, begins the moment you step into the auditorium and see the spectacular backcloth by the celebrated painter Anish Kapoor. Kapoor has created a void, an impenetrable black rectangle with blurred edges that covers most of the back of the stage. As the work begins, a single dancer comes on stage and, back to the audience, stares motionless into the darkness before a woman joins him, leaning forward to whisper in his ear.

We soon understand that we are watching the end of the work as it begins to move backwards ingeniously. The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.

The dancers form a single, dynamic column, moving simultaneously but differently, their arms slashing and pulverising the air, faster than light. At first, you watch Khan himself, mesmerised by the visual beauty, grace, and emotion engendered by his slightest gesture, but then your eyes are drawn to the other four dancers, clearly inspired by their leader to great heights.

Akram Khan Company: Kaash
© Photo: courtesy of Akram Khan

A central, slow, almost meditative section followed, where a girl threw herself on the ground, undulating as a serpent, writhing, animal-like, yet always neat and precise. At this point the music of Nithin Sawney, which had kept up a constant dialogue with the choreography, gave place to the harshness of the dancer's breathing, the decor behind her seeming almost alive, the edges trembling and oscillating.