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For the internationally acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan, questions of home and identity have been present since an early age. He speaks to Ben Bohm-Duchen about how these themes have become a defining Home Was influence on his life’s work. in My Body 62 Akram Khan 63 Home Was in My Body In his performances, Akram Khan ne- up I felt more and more displaced. As sense of home must be both physi- gotiates deeply complex subjects with a child I didn’t notice it as much, but I cally and mentally internalised. Khan spellbinding beauty, resulting in pow- knew that we were different. When we stresses this point: “This sense of erful spectacles that resonate with were in Bangladesh they treated me being displaced is very placed for me, audiences around the world. Within differently to the other Bangladeshi and that placement is in my body. And the narratives that he brings to the children and I wondered whether it the displacement is what’s outside stage a recurring and essential theme was because they didn’t see me very my body. What’s inside my body is has been established. Displacement, often and so were treating me special- my home and what’s outside is… I for Khan, is an experience that is ly… but there was something there. I think we relate everything through closely tied to ideas of home and felt xenos. I felt like a foreigner. And our bodies… we are the centre of the identity, and from the moment we sit growing up here, working as a waiter universe. You are the centre, because down he is keen to emphasise the im- in my dad’s restaurant in the sum- it’s your perception that you’re seeing portance of these subjects within his mers, I felt real xenophobia. In the Earth; wherever you travel, you bring creative process. “It’s dominated my early to mid-1990s, there was a lot your centre with you. And that’s how work. Everything I’ve done is about more overt racism in London. Gangs I’ve always felt.” For the countless identity. Whether it’s identity about of men coming into the restaurant numbers who are currently leaving you as a boy or a man. Or whether it’s and throwing bottles over our heads. everything they know behind as they your identity as a brown person, or I was in hospital once, bleeding – it journey to a new life, this may well be as a Jewish person or a Muslim. It’s was pretty violent. a familiar feeling. about sex, gender. I use particular Akram Khan’s family mi- subjects to reflect, to use as a mirror grated to London during the conflict to bounce off and to question that in Bangladesh around the time of particular agenda: the agenda that independence in 1971. Khan’s parents I have depending on what angle of do not talk about their experiences identity I’m interested in, whether it’s much but he hears certain stories about race, or about country, or about repeated. Understandably, it is hard sexuality, or about borders. But it’s to talk about such difficult times. “I mostly about xenos.” think they are in denial about being in XENOS, a Greek word denial. They’re not aware of being in meaning “stranger” or “foreigner”, is denial but they choose not to speak the title of Akram Khan’s new perfor- too much. I tease stuff out… I think mance. It is a concept that not only they were exposed to some pretty has vital importance to his work but horrific things; they lost a lot of family also utmost relevance in the current members. It’s the worst of humankind, political climate. “It is about being war. But I get certain stories out. I a foreigner: a foreigner in your own think when they arrived here they felt body, in your home, in the playground, saved. My father came in 1971. I think a foreigner among your friends and my mum came in 1973. She said that I within your own country, the world was “born as a seed in Bangladesh.” that you are in. I think we’re all for- These early experiences The memory of conflict, eigners right now. We are borrowing of racism would inevitably lead to a violence and displacement is passed Earth. We don’t own Earth. We share sense of not belonging, to a sense of down through generations in curious it with other animals and our species being a foreigner in your own home. ways. For Khan, storytelling, fables, destroys them within a few years. “Being displaced is something I’ve folk songs and myths are an essential Every 20 years some species is near been conscious of since I was a child means of handing down memories, a extinction because of us. We are the because of racism, because of the consistent and recurring trope within worst, most evil species.” Displace- incidents. Perhaps some of them are his work. Indeed, in DESH, Khan plays ment in Khan’s eyes goes far beyond isolated but, a lot of restaurant own- on this dynamic very directly as he the physical migration of humans; it is ers, we used to share stories and we acts out conversations between him- a crisis of identity within our society; it knew it wasn’t just us. Displacement self and his father, comically relaying Akram Khan’s performances. Photographs by Richard Haughton is a lack of connection to the natural became a place where I felt placed, the tensions and misunderstandings world and the planet. so home was in my body; home was between generations. “My father and So how did the theme of dis- not a place. I constantly felt I was in mother have been through a very placement become such an overriding borrowed space, or that I was not wel- intense conflict in Bangladesh, the in- force within his work? Born in 1974 of come in the space. And that feeling is dependence of Bangladesh, and then Bangladeshi heritage, but growing up coming back again.” I was born three years after. Somehow in Wimbledon, Khan became aware of It is perhaps unsurprising they never really allowed that expe- notions of identity, ethnicity and na- that in the face of hostility, and in rience to filter through to us. And if it tionality from an early age. “As I grew some cases trauma and violence, a did filter through, it was through 64 Akram Khan 65 Home Was in My Body narrative, through myths. And I think metaphorically; they are examples DESH was clearly a sincere Noor Hossain, a Bangladeshi myths are important, because the of mistakes we’ve made, successes, and deeply personal undertaking. activist, by the Bangladesh police myth of being displaced is somehow which reveal human nature: jealousy, Was it a journey of self-discovery on 10 November 1987 while protest- a continuous myth through history. love, hate. The problem is when you for Khan? “The intention was purely ing against the dictator President From the Jewish people having to be take it literally, that’s when it becomes to tell a story. But in that wanting to Hussain Muhammad Ershad near displaced, to the Hindus and Muslims something fundamentalist.” tell a story there’s obviously a part Zero Point in Dhaka. Zero Point was in India when it was partitioned, to So myths, understandably that is rooted in wanting to come to later renamed Noor Hossain Square Syria right now. All over the world, more powerful when perceived from a terms with my own questions about and the anniversary of his death is it’s continuous. Of course there are viewpoint where they have relevance identity. What contemporary dance officially commemorated each year peaks, like the Second World War or to one’s own life, have to take new does is announce the questions more as Shohid Noor Hossain Day. He is right now.” forms. Khan explains: “I’m fascinated poetically at a certain angle. It’s not one of the most widely known martyrs When asked what it is that by how mythology relates to me today. about getting answers, but by asking from Bangladesh’s pro-democracy makes this a particularly significant Myth has to evolve or be recreated. something repetitively an answer movement. He wrote “Free Democra- period for myths, Khan points to The underlying thing about myth evolves out of that repetition. And cy” on his back and “Down with the our relationship to the past. “I think should stay but we have to develop it maybe that is the answer: that there Dictator” on his chest and led the we’re in a very specific time. And it’s so it relates to ourselves, otherwise it are not answers. But there is only the march. “He was shot by the police. He happened before, just before the means nothing.” question; there is only the will to want died, and he became a symbol, a kind Second World War. What’s happening Khan was trained in the to find out; there is only the curiosity. of spark, catalyst, to push. That really is the old myths, the religious myths classical Indian dance form of kathak, The act of curiosity means there is a inspired me when I saw the images.” perhaps, or even capitalist myths, which still informs much of his style Image by Tim Yip movement there. Stillness is death, or For Khan, “images are un- haven’t died yet.