Akram Khan Company, based in London, will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary. Born in England with Bengali heritage, Akram Khan is regarded one the world’s leading choreographers and a visionary in contemporary dance. Trained in the classical Indian dance form of Kathak, he continually explores new styles and forms and seeks to exchange with other artists fearlessly, crossing boundaries, both conceptually and spiritually.
Khan creates a highly sophisticated form of performance that reinterprets the myths of different peoples and depicts the search for community, connecting each individual. One of the inspirations for the world premiere with which he aims to ‘outwit the devil’ at COLOURS Festival Stuttgart, is the newly discovered fragment of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world’s earliest surviving great works of literature. Akram’s new work is a concentrated epic about ritual and remembering.
In a landscape of broken tablets and fallen idols, six characters trade their remaining wealth and stories, seeking to make whole the fragments of ancient knowledge lost and forgotten over time.
Preternaturally gifted, entirely distinct, Khan ranks among those once-in-a-generation performers who can redefine our idea of what dancing is or might possibly be. – The Guardian, London
His dance speaks to the gods. – Welt am Sonntag
Saturday, 13 July at 8.15 pm
Sunday, 14 July at 7 pm
On 14 July Akram Khan will stay after the performance for a talk with the audience. Presenter: Nicola Müllerschön.