Akram Khan notes

Combined classical kathak and contemporary styles
Inspired by Michael Jackson- his sense of being able to hold an audience
Pushed by his mother to start dance when he was young, as he was moving all the time
He didn’t feel that he fir in with the Bangladeshi boys as they were very academic
He didn’t go to school for a year to dance, and was caught at parents evening
He was so committed to train for 8 hours a day instead of schoool
Working with Peter Brook at the age of 14 influenced him massively- how he stripped away anything superficial to get to the core of what needs to be said
To create rhythms, he states that there is a form, and within that form you are able to create patterns and twist the form itself, bending the rules
There is storytelling in all Indian classical dance
He is fascinated by science, numbers and maths in relation to stories
He initially had no intentions to become a contemporary dancer, and was asked about it in uni
He borrowed videos from the library- Pina Bauch rite of spring and DV8
He was initially shocked and horrified buy contemporary dance, and says that it makes you ask questions- which the university found very appealing
He says that the body makes its own rules and decisions about what works and what doesn’t
Farooq Chaudhry collaborated with him to open his company in 2000 , in which he wanted to collaborate with other artists- musicians, filmmakers, etc
They wanted to take themselves into new places and put themselves in risky situations
Zero degrees- story of him travelling from Bangladesh to India,and how arrogant he was with his British passport
He saw a dead body on the train, and found it surreal that out of fear, people were acting as if nothing was wrong
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui asked him to tell him a story that he had never told anyone
Khan told Cherkaoui the story in front of a camera, which then became the musical score for the piece, and the dance developed from the hand movements in the video
He says that when he is England he feels Bangladeshi and when he is in Bangladesh he feels English
He says that dance is a very complicated form of athleticism
Six months before the olympics he had a ruptured Achilles tendon, and thought his dance career was over
He states that doubt is as powerful a guide as certainty
In Desh, he becomes his father, and states that his relationship to his father is similar to that to his guru
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