“After twenty years of unearthing, discovering, and retelling through new lenses, this is a moment for me to reflect and to look back at the footsteps that we at AKC have taken collectively.”
– Akram Khan

This programme is dedicated to everyone who had walked with us on our unpredictable 20-year adventure. It’s for all the company members and artists from start to present, and for those who feel silenced and who are yet to find their voice.

Curated during our 20th anniversary in 2020, The Silent Burn Project presented specially created dance and music films recorded all around the world, transporting people from their homes. Shot mainly in outdoor spaces, the short dance films featured Company artists: Yen-Ching Lin, Ching-Ying Chien, Theo TJ Lowe, Kristina Alleyne, Sadé Alleyne, Kennedy Junior Muntanga, and Akram himself. We invited a few of our beloved musicians Sohini Alam, Nina Harries, B C Manjunath, David Azurza and Chitra Poornima Sathish to perform parts of heartrending pieces that many would be familiar with.

As part of the programme we spent some time discussing themes that organically weaved themselves into the fabric of our Company productions. Clouds of Witnesses, which explores Otherness, welcomes American ballerina Misty Copeland, British poet Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Indian cultural critic Rustom Bharucha, South East Asian cultural activist Eddin Khoo and British lecturer in theatre Royona Mitra.

We felt compelled to assemble another group of exhilarating voices for Hijacking God, to examine the subject of God and transcendental experiences. British anthropologist Jerome Lewis, Indian dancer and researcher Jayachandran Surendran, and Indonesian writer and activist Ayu Utami speak candidly about their research and personal perspectives. Both of the conversations encouraged our audiences to expand and deliberate on these topics with one another.

We believe in emphasising that we couldn’t have been able to rise without having fallen several times. Akram and his close collaborators, dramaturg Ruth Little, composer Vincenzo Lamagna, creative associate Mavin Khoo and dancer Joy Alpuerto Ritter, walked through never-seen-before archive footage captured by Maxime Dos. In the three-part docu-series Symphony of Fingerprints, you will hear from each of them on their moments of doubt, challenges and vulnerability through the creative process.

The Classical Intensive documentary, The Surrendering Clown, highlights our legacy work and dives deeply into the Company’s practice.