Akram Khan New World Choreographies Series Editors: Rachel Fensham and Peter M
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Akram Khan New World Choreographies Series Editors: Rachel Fensham and Peter M. Boenisch Editorial Assistant: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Editorial Advisory Board: Ric Allsop, Falmouth University, UK; Susan Leigh Foster, UCLA, USA; Lena Hammergren, University of Stockholm, Sweden; Gabriele Klein, University of Hamburg, Germany; Andre Lepecki, NYU, USA; Avanthi Meduri, Roehampton University, UK New World Choreographies presents advanced yet accessible studies of a rich field of new choreographic work which is embedded in the global, transnational and intermedial context. It introduces artists, companies and scholars who contribute to the conceptual and technological rethinking of what constitutes movement, blurring old boundaries between dance, theatre and performance. The series considers new aesthetics and new contexts of production and presentation, and discusses the multi-sensory, collaborative and transformative potential of these new world choreographies. Gretchen Schiller & Sarah Rubidge (editors) CHOREOGRAPHIC DWELLINGS Prarthana Purkayastha INDIAN MODERN DANCE, FEMINISM AND TRANSNATIONALISM Forthcoming titles include: Pil Hansen & Darcey Callison (editors) DANCE DRAMATURGY Cristina Rosa BRAZILIAN BODIES AND THEIR CHOREOGRAPHIES OF IDENTIFICATION New World Choreographies Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–35986–5 (hardback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Akram Khan Dancing New Interculturalism Royona Mitra Brunel University London, UK © Royona Mitra 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martins Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-48363-1 ISBN 978-1-137-39366-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137393661 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. To Heera My Sparkling Diamond Contents List of Images viii Series Editors’ Preface ix Preface xi Acknowledgements xvi Introduction 1 1 Khan’s Body-of-Action 31 2 Corporeal Gestures in Gnosis (2010) 52 3 Auto-ethnography and Loose in Flight (1999) 71 4 Third Space Politics in Zero Degrees (2005) and Desh (2011) 92 5 Mobility and Flexibility in Bahok (2008) 115 6 Queering Normativity in iTMOi (2013) 137 Conclusion 154 Appendix: List of Performances 169 Notes 171 Bibliography 179 Index 193 vii List of Images 1 Akram Khan Company at the London Olympics Opening Ceremony by photographer Marc Aspland, The Times, with photo permission granted by News Syndication. 2 Akram Khan and Fang-Yi Sheu in Gnosis by photographer Philip van Ootegem. 3 Akram Khan and Fang-Yi Sheu in Gnosis by photographer Philip van Ootegem. 4 Akram Khan in Zero Degrees by photographer Tristram Kenton. 5 Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in Zero Degrees by photographer Tristram Kenton. 6 Akram Khan in Desh by photographer Richard Haughton. 7 Akram Khan in Desh by photographer Richard Haughton. 8 Akram Khan in Desh by photographer Richard Haughton. 9 Shanell Winlock in Bahok by photographer Liu Yang. 10 Akram Khan Company in Bahok by photographer Liu Yang. 11 Catherine Schaub Abkarian and Denis Kuhnert in iTMOi by photographer Jean-Louis Fernandez. 12 Ching Ying Chien in iTMOi by photographer Jean-Louis Fernandez. 13 Akram Khan Company in iTMOi by photographer Jean-Louis Fernandez. 14 Yen Ching Lin and Sung Hoon Kim in iTMOi by photographer Jean-Louis Fernandez. 15 Akram Khan, Tamara Rojo and English National Ballet in Dust by photographer Jane Hobson. 16 English National Ballet in Dust by photographer Jane Hobson. viii Series Editors’ Preface Choreography in the global context of the twenty-first century involves performance practices that are often fluid, mediated, interdiscipli- nary, collaborative and interactive. Choreographic projects and cho- reographic thinking circulate rapidly within the transnational flows of contemporary performance, prompting new aesthetics and stretching the disciplinary boundaries of established dance studies. Crossing the borders of arts disciplines, histories and cultures, these new world cho- reographies utilise dance techniques and methods to new critical ends in the body’s interaction with the senses, the adoption of technology, the response to history as well as present-day conditions of political and social transformation, or in the constitution of spectator communities. As a result, well-rehearsed approaches to understanding choreogra- phy through dance lineages, canonical structures, or as the product of individual artists give way to new modes of production and representa- tion and an ever extending notion of what constitutes dance in per- formance. Choreographic practice as well as research on choreography draws on new methods of improvisation, (auto-)biography, collective creation and immersion in ways which challenge established (Western) notions of subjectivity, of the artist as creator, or which unsettle the objective distance between the critic and the work. The post-national, inter-medial and interdisciplinary contexts of digital and social media, festival circuits, rapidly changing political economies, and global world politics call for further critical attention. With an openness to these new worlds in which dance so adeptly manoeuvres, this book series aims to provide critical and historicised perspectives on the artists, concepts and cultures shaping this creative field of new world choreographies. The series will provide a platform for fresh ways to understand and reflect upon what choreography means to its various audiences, and to the wider field of international dance and performance studies. Additionally, it will also provide a forum for new scholars to expand upon their ideas and to map out new knowledge par- adigms that introduce this diverse and exciting field of choreographic practice to dance, theatre and performance studies. ix x Series Editors’ Preface Rachel Fensham, University of Melbourne Peter M. Boenisch, University of Kent Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Series Administration We gratefully acknowledge the support of this publication by the faculty of arts at the University of Melbourne. www.newworldchoreographies.com Preface In the summer of 1998 Akram Khan, a British-Bangladeshi man, graduated from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds with an outstanding honours degree. The previous year, I, an Indian woman, arrived in Britain to pursue a degree in contemporary performance practices at the University of Plymouth. Both Bengalis, both trained in the South Asian dance form of kathak from the north of India, and both seeking performance languages beyond our classical repertoire, Khan and I shared much in common. In the same year Britain witnessed a momentous shift in politics as Labour returned to power after eight- een years. Over the next decade, in very different contexts, the career trajectories of both Khan and myself were fuelled by Labour’s policies on multiculturalism and immigration. When we finally met in 2008, Khan was already a successful and influential artist in the field of British contemporary dance, and I was a scholar vested in analysing this field through the lens of cultural studies.1 Through this preface I wish to chronicle how Khan’s path crossed my own in this British terrain leading to the birth of my doctoral thesis and ultimately this book. This monograph is a significant development of my PhD research, which I completed in 2011 at Royal Holloway (University of London). I therefore believe my readers will value an insight into the journey that led me to undertake my doctorate, and for this a brief overview of my own performance training in India and Britain is vital. Between 1984 and 1995 while still living in Calcutta, I undertook training in