Akram Khan is an award-winning British-Bangladeshi choreographer and dancer. He has performed at London’s Royal National Theatre and the London Olympics opening ceremony. Khan has received honors including the Olivier Award in 2012 and 2019 for his works DESH and XENOS.
“Movement is life,” Khan told the ANA-MPA. “Dance was always my way to make changes to myself.”
Khan is a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He received the honor in the 2005 New Year Honours for his contributions to dance.
The renowned performing artist collaborated with the English National Ballet for his latest work. The result, Creature, debuted at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London in September.
Akram Khan: the choreographer and dancer
Khan began dancing onstage at 10 years old. The Academy of Indian Dance hired the young performer to dance in the Adventures of Mowgli tour from 1984-1985.
At 13 years old, Peter Brook’s Shakespeare Company cast Khan in their Mahabharata tour. The production is an adaptation of one of India’s two Sanskrit epics. He toured the world from 1987-1989.
Khan pursued contemporary dance at De Montfort University in England. He soon transferred to performing arts at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance for a more rigorous curriculum. After some time performing, Khan joined the X-Group project for young choreographers in Brussels’ Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s PARTS school.
The dancer began performing his own choreography as a soloist in the 1990s. In 2000, he founded the Akram Khan Company with former dancer and arts manager Farooq Chaudry. Khan then presented his first full-length piece, Kaash, at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival. Since then, the company has released numerous works including Outwitting the Devil, Carnival of Shadows, and Jungle Book Reimagined.
Khan is often inspired by his South Asian heritage. For example, Kaash, a collaboration with Anish Kapoor and Nitin Sawhney, is an exploration of Hindu mythology. MA (2004) is inspired by Arundhati Roy’s work on farmers in India.
Australian popstar Kylie Minogue invited Khan to choreograph for her Showgirl tour in 2006. He also choreographed for the London-based Ballet Boyz company and for Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theater.
Moreover, Khan both choreographed and danced lead for the English National Ballet’s production Dust. He also directed the Manchester International Festival’s 2016 production of Giselle, which went on tour after debuting at the Palace Theater.
Khan is an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, and Curve Theatre.
Akram Khan began dancing as a 3-Year-Old
Khan was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1974, where his father ran an Indian restaurant. But his family hails from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
“As a kid I was very invisible,” Khan told The Guardian. “It had a huge impact on me when I won a disco competition dancing to Michael Jackson and Five Star. I realised that movement was my best way of communicating.”
Khan began Bengali folk dance with his mother at 3 years old. “We would do it at mela,” Khan told the Independent. “It’s like an outdoor Indian festival.”
At 7 years old, the choreographer began training in kathak with renowned dancer Sri Pratap Pawar. The classical dance has its roots in ancient northern India, when travelling bards told mythological stories using stylized gestures.
Today Khan is married with two children, a daughter and son.
Khan debuts “Creature” in London
Creature is Khan’s third work for English National Ballet. The production follows a 2019 twist of Giselle.
“Creature is an unearthly tale of exploitation and human frontiers inspired by Georg Büchner’s expressionist classic Woyzeck, with shadows of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Drawing on themes of abandonment, isolation and the fragility of the mind, Creature is the tale of an outsider and the search for belonging,” reads the English National Ballet’s official synopsis.
Khan blended his contemporary style with the ballet’s classical training. Lead principal dancer Jeffrey Cirio performed the title role. Meanwhile, a longtime collaborator of Khan’s, Vincenzo Lamagna, composed the score.
“The body is the most truthful and most direct way of saying things because it is the most primal,” Khan said. “The body encapsulates all five senses simultaneously working together to tell a story.”
Creature was originally scheduled to premiere in April 2020 and was delayed due to COVID-19. Instead, the production ran at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London from September 23 to October 2, 2021.
Watch the trailer here and peruse the Akram Khan Company’s tour dates here.
