Akram Khan's “Gigenis” is a dark story told through Indian classical dance

I met the dancers he threw at “Jegenis” at a residency held in Kumbakonam, southern Tamil Nadu. Four of the seven, including Khoo, specialize in Bharatanatyam, perhaps the most commonly practiced classic form. The youngest Sirikalyani Adkoli (18 years old) is Odissi Dancer, a student at Nrityagram, a training centre near Bangalore. Ensemble regularly visits New York. (Adcoli was only 15 years old at the time of his residency.) Venu is the second generation practitioner of Kutiyattam, an ancient form of Sanskrit theatre in Kerala. (In 2012, she performed a solo evening at the Asian Association in New York City.)

“I don't really identify with dancers,” Ben said in a recent video call from Zurich, who was visiting his family. “I always thought of myself as an actor.” However, Kutiyattam's performances include very vivid costumes and makeup, including movement, music (mainly drumming), songs, mimes, and more. In “gigenis”, like everyone else, she does without these. “It creates an interesting kind of vulnerability,” she said.

A physical and dramatic artist, Ben is a performer who opens his work with his terrifying solos. “In my heart,” she said. “It represents the monster of war and how violence produces violence.”

Inspired by his residency at Kumbakonam, Khan originally planned to present an Indian dance festival. However, when he and others began their rehearsal period in Italy last year, he would say they came together and told them that each performer was using his or her style of Indian dance. I realized that I want them to be together. The dancer is believed as a director, not a choreographer – edited and edited into Impressionist stories about women (Queen, Mother, Wife), bringing material to reflect on her life.

“It was really instinctive,” Kahn said. “A process of trial and error, trial and error. As we went on, my thoughts about what I was looking for constantly changed,” and he had no plans to dance in it, though. , he pulls back from playing a once-known punishing evening-length solo, but he finds himself drawn into the action.

In the center is Ven. As the main character, she reminds and observes others who enact the scene from her life. She laments her husband's death and crowns one of her sons (Khoo). The other son, played by Khan, is consumed by ambition. Their conflict leads to war, violence and more deaths.