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Until the Lions | Interview | Evening Standard
2 December 2015
An incredible performer of intense focus and magnetism
- Lyndsey Winship
Akram Khan is playing a game of musical chairs. The life of a world-leading choreographer is not spent locked away in the dance studio, it turns out, but in a series of meetings. The day I meet Khan, in the café downstairs from his Highbury office, all he’s done is move from table to table, powwow to powwow, each one about a different project. He’s not the first to discover that the more successful you get, the less time you have to do the thing you really love.
The projects never stop for the Wimbledon-born dancer, who made his name fusing classical Indian dance and contemporary dance to create a signature style all of his own. He’s just returned from a tour of India with his show Torobaka (a duet with flamenco firecracker Israel Galvàn) but there’s no time to rest — a new children’s version of his award-winning piece Desh is getting its premiere, his company is touring the US with a revival of Khan’s breakout show, Kaash, from 2002 and legendary ballerina Sylvie Guillem is performing a Khan piece in her global retirement tour. He’s about to start work on his own version of Giselle for English National Ballet and there are new seeds being planted all the time, including projects that came out of his appearance at the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony which are only just coming to life.
To read the full interview, click here.