Around the World With Akram Khan

On a visit to India, British choreographer Akram Khan endured a frightening episode when border guards snatched his passport. “I knew I was nothing without that piece of paper,” he said recently, over the phone from Australia, where he was on tour. “They could say I was anyone and I wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise. A document separated a good life from a bad life — and possibly my life from my death.” Mr. Khan, though, used the experience as a springboard for two new works — “Zero Degrees” and “Bahok” — created for Mr. Khan’s company, which will be performed on alternate evenings at City Center beginning tomorrow.For “Zero Degrees,” Mr. Khan asked Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the Flemish-Moroccan dancer and choreographer known for his dazzling virtuosity, to collaborate on the piece with him. “We’re both caught between two cultures,” the 33-year-old Mr. Khan, who was born in London to Bangladeshi parents, said. “It makes me particularly interested in the nature of identity in a migrating world.” He explored the theme again when his company joined members of the National Ballet of China in the creation of “Bahok” (the Bengali word for carrier), which had its premiere in Beijing in January.In “Bahok,” Mr. Khan takes cross-cultural collaboration to a new level, using dancers from six different countries and almost as many dance backgrounds. Set in an airport or train departure lounge, what he called “a kind of purgatory or a no man’s land,” it opens with the dancers sitting around waiting to leave for indeterminate destinations. The words “Please Wait,” “Rescheduled,” “Delayed,” “Water,” “Earth,” and “Phone Home” flash across a board hanging above their heads. They become increasingly overwrought as they try to contact one another or loved ones through their cell phones, their desperation and sadness expressed in tentative gestures and abrupt and nervous movements. Accompanied by a moody, atmospheric score by composer Nitin Sawhney, who also wrote the music for “Zero Degrees,” their short, eloquent stories touchingly convey the fragility of human relationships.To achieve this intensity, Mr. Khan insisted on the dancers’ total engagement, the defining characteristic of his own compelling, visceral performances. Saju, an Indian newcomer to the troupe who trained in ancient martial arts, had never experienced anything like his methods. “We talked and talked at the beginning,” he said, “delving into our pasts. It was almost like therapy. He wanted us to figure out the place in our childhood that we truly felt was home,” he said. “Akram insists that you be very honest in your performance. Your heart has to be in every move.”Dancer Andrej Petronvic only knew Slovakian folk dance before joining the company a year ago, but quickly broadened his horizons. “It’s Akram’s combination of kathak and contemporary dance that’s so beautiful,” he said. “It gives you an entirely new way to approach content. There are very specific rules that eventually become instinctive in your body. But he gives you a lot of freedom, too. He wants to see your movement and what it might add to his.”Though Mr. Khan does not dance in “Bahok,” he informs the piece with his own meditations on home. “It came out of my realizing,” he said, “that I don’t have a home. My body is my only home, the source of my memories and senses. Because of my background, I carry home with me.” Mr. Khan grew up in London immersed in kathak, the Indian classical dance characterized by rapid footwork and fast, whirling turns. At age 14, he won a role in Peter Brook’s famed version of the epic “Mahabharata.” In spare moments, he learned to emulate Michael Jackson’s slinky moves by watching “Thriller” and then in college got caught up in Western modern choreographers such as Martha Graham.By the time Mr. Khan established his company in 2000, he was combining these influences in stunning, abstract works — “confusion,” he called his style, “not fusion.” “Kaash” put him on the map in 2002, and he won further acclaim with “ma,” which was presented at Lincoln Center in 2006. He also began creating smaller pieces with high-profile artists from disparate disciplines and backgrounds, like composer Steve Reich and ballerina Sylvie Guillem. In a short time, he became one of Europe’s most popular choreographers and dancers. Because of his drive and popularity, Mr. Khan has not stopped working for eight years. But finally — after creating a dance this summer with the actress Juliette Binoche for a fall premiere in London — he is going to take a much-anticipated five-month break. Though travel would seem to be the last thing he would choose as respite after dealing with its disorienting and dangerous downside, he plans to visit remote villages in China and Africa. “In other cultures,” he said, “especially those yet untouched by modernity, I find inspiration. There’s no reason to stop because of the challenges.”

Around the World With Akram Khan

Around the World With Akram Khan

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