Interview with choreographer Akram Khan

December 27, 2008
By Kyoko Iwaki

Only in his mid-thirties, this young British- Bangladeshi choreographer
has already tied up with the top-list greats in the bustling art world,
gaining him a dashing stellar career and a center stage spotlight.
Some of the names among his eminent co-workers are, the controversial
British sculptor Anish Kapoor, the French ballet diva Sylvie Guillem,
and the international pop icon Kylie Minogue. And now with his newest
creation in-i another beautiful name joins this list, the Oscar-winner
actress Juliette Binoche.
Okay, so some blabby critics and journalists are gradually starting to
call him a high-flying careerist…but is he really so? Meeting up with
him in a cozy restaurant in Paris, the man sitting in front of me with
a café crème and a warm judicious smile, just seemed to be having
fun staying true to his inexhaustible curiosity.

——Since your breakthrough in Zero Degrees (05) you have been dubbed as the “ Prince of contemporary dance”.
Akram: Well, I know. But frankly, I don’t care much about how I am looked upon. I just do what I want to do. Which is, by the way, usually the extreme opposite of what people want me to do. I mean, the truth for me is, that you can never play safe as an artist. You always have to take risks. That is the only true way for creating art. But anyway going back to your question, yes, Zero Degrees was a creative milestone for me. Because before that, in the early days, I used to perform to a lot of empty seats. It was such a depressing life, and I thought I ‘m such a depressing artist. Nobody sees me. I must be doing crap. Then one day a Hindu musician I know came up to me and said, “Imagine that each empty seat has a God sitting there”. So from that day on, faithfully taking in his advice, I put Krishna and Ganesa and Siva and all the Gods I knew in the audience.

——Wow, that is quite an audience.
Akram: It is. And also what you’re going to present to Krishna is totally different from what you’re going to present to Siva. Each of them is individual. So in a way, you become tremendously sensitive and aware of all these Gods in the theater. And for me, this goes exactly the same with people. Once you’re in a theater, you contact each and every one of them differently. The Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara once said something very beautiful regarding to this concept, which I quite agree. He said that if there is 450 people in the audience, and one hour later it becomes 451, because one person comes in late, his whole breathing changes, as he senses every single person in that room. It is the same with me, or at least I’d like to think it is the same. On stage, my five senses are fully awake.

——You premiered Zero Degrees in July 8th 2005. Which was astonishingly the day after the 7/7 bombings.
Akram: Yes I remember clearly. That sunny afternoon—we were just finishing our general rehearsal, and Larbi (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) and I were smoking outside watching the streets. I immediately noticed something bizarre and asked Larbi, why are all these people with packed briefcases and business suites, walking, to get home? I mean they were like zombies. So shocked by the incident that occurred, they couldn’t help but just keep moving aimlessly and hopelessly. Minutes later, somebody from the theater informed us that there were some bombings. After, we started discussing whether or not we should cancel the performance. It wasn’t an easy call, but at the end Larbi and I decided to do give it a go. Even if there was only one person who dares to come out of his house, we felt that it was so important to do it. Amazingly enough, most of the audience shows up the next day. Though half way through the performance, when I started my monologue about the dead body I saw on train in India…one thousand people simultaneously moved backwards, as if it was precisely orchestrated. I know that it happened out of an undesired horrific incident, but I dare say, it was such a beautiful sight from my perspective. Because everybody was together, everybody was united. For the first time in my theater life, I truly felt that we were all one.

——In this day and age, artists cannot stay indifferent or irrelevant to the society.
Akram: Yes, I agree. Although when I was younger, I chose to be blind. Oh, it is so far away over the water, Iraq is in war but it has nothing to do with me. But now, I feel more and more connected to all of that. The world has become smaller. You cannot choose to ignore. Although in my pieces, I don’t show exactly what is happening in the world. I show part of it, I am more subtle in it, and it is my choice to play more with the abstract. Because when you create in this abstract kind of form, it leaves room for the audience. To delve in and dig in and think in their own way. Actually, this is also the philosophy of Anish (Kapoor), the brilliant set designer in my newest piece in-i. He says that creation is not about what you add, but rather is about what you take away. Because that is when you really see the power of space.

——I sense some oriental philosophy, more precisely, a Japanese Haiku kind of artistry hidden behind it.
Akram: Oh, I love the Japanese culture. Because you never fill up the space. There is always some silence and stillness left behind. It is such a beautiful concept. Also what I adore about Japan is that, the culture living there is like a hammerhead shark. You know that fish, two eyes looking at totally the opposite way? Japan is like that. One eye towards the future and the other towards the past. And it is growing in both directions.

——Do you think that you would like to focus on both ends of the spectrum also, the traditional dance and the contemporary dance?
Akram: I want to take in tradition. I want to use tradition. I don’t want to expel it, because for me the tradition is so rich. But what is important is that you have to present it in a new and original way. And that’s what really takes time in creating an art. You know the funny thing is, time is moving so fast these days — we’re on computers, palm pilots, mobile phones and all of that, but there is absolutely one thing that cannot be changed in time. And that is giving birth. From past till now, it still takes nine months, and I must say that it takes nearly the same amount of time to give birth to a new piece of work. This is my opinion. You cannot speed it up. You cannot force the baby to come out. But unfortunately, in in-i, we forced it and created it in just four months. When it was premiered in The National Theater in UK last year, it wasn’t at all ready. So I must say, this is still a work-in-progress.

——When I saw the show in Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, I was a bit astonished because Juliette Binoche’s dancing was quite better than my expectations, although frankly it is not a professional leveled dance.
Akram: She is refining her dance everyday, but yes of course she is not a professional dancer. You cannot create a true dancer in four months. And neither did I think that I could pretend to be a professional actor in four months. That’s not the point with this piece. What we wanted to do was, just trust our faith, trust our instinct, and dive into the unknown with curiosity. Hoping that we would end up finding a new medium, where dance and theater could work together.

——At the starting point, did you have any vague vision of that goal?
Akram: No, not at all. So when the promoter asked us, “Okay so the show is going to be bloody expensive, what is it going to be about?” Juliette and I were like, “We don’t fuckin’ know.”[Laughs] We didn’t have the slightest clue, and it was so scary. But at the same time, that’s exactly why we were so excited about it.

——Yeah, because you two are the fearless daredevils.
Akram: Yes we might be quite daring. But you have to be careful, because it is not about showing that you are daring. I know that some people think about in-I in that way, that we are just trying to show off how daring we are, but It’s not like that. It’s just that we really felt that we could share and exchange from the experience of each other’s world. She wanted to dance. I wanted to act. And each of us had a little seed of curiosity growing inside. Which made us step into the unknown.

——As a consequence, you two caused a stir both in the audience and the critic. Very mixed reviews, in a love-it-or-hate-it kind of way.
Akram: I know, and that is the whole point. In this world, you either win big or loose big. Otherwise you just play safe — and that brings us back full circle to the right beginning of the conversation. I am not willing to play anything safe.