"exoticism ... undeniably attractive"

August 20, 2003 performance reviewed by Jocelyn McGrath

In his Pillow debut, Akram Khan performs his work Kaash, which is a Hindi word for “If.” Khan is a gifted young dancer and choreographer from London whose parents are originally from Bangla Desh.

Kaash is an excellent collaborative work for five dancers, with an wonderful set by designer Anish Kaoor. Music by composer Nitin Sawhney. It is Khan’s first full-length piece. In it Khan explores the eternal cycles of creation and destruction, linking physics and Indian mythology. Even the choreographic process followed this governing principle. Khan described taking a dance passage and then destroying it to winnow a fragment, then expanding that fragment, and repeating the process. Though the precise mechanics are a bit mysterious to the layman, it is clear that the work has integrity and complexity.

On entering the theater, the audience enters a space already occupied by a dancer standing still and facing away from the audience. So the dance is already begun, even before we take our seats. He is looking toward a large black rectangle, horizontally positioned on the backdrop. According to Kahn ’s after-performance talk, this is the Void, and at various times in the performance it has different qualities. It becomes the darkness that serves to highlight the dancers. Occasionally the dancers stand so close to it that the gloom seems to absorb them. And at one point in the work the dancers clear the stage completely so that the audience has nothing else to relate to. On this empty stage, a soundscape cacophony increases in volume filling the theatre space, and the Void’s darkness seems to ominously pulse and grow. The rest of the musical score runs the range of deeply satisfying rhythmic passages, to silence, to space-age ambient noise and the sound of Khan’s voice distorted electronically.

Khan’s childhood training is in the traditional Indian dance form called Kathak, and this source is evident in his technique and gesture. His current style is a blend of modern dance and Kathak, but he does not seek their integration as an end in itself. For a Western audience, the exoticism of Khan’s Kathak dance vocabulary is undeniably attractive. But after the initial contact what makes it more strongly compelling is his ability to use this vocabulary to speak about the here and now.

Khan’s composite style is marked by contrasts of speed and stillness. In the best sense the motion is animalistic, filled with grace and presence and power in motion, watchful and poised when still. Unlike some traditional modern dance forms, leg extension and gravity-defying leaps are mostly absent. Instead, the work is characterized by a quick-flowing intimacy with the ground and with interior spaces. The hand gestures — ancient, precise — are ripe with meaning. It doesn’t matter that these gestures are undecipherable; they evoke images and ideas so powerfully that they invite the audience to supply meaning to them. Khan emphasizes that even though the hand gestures could be “translated” for the audience, he prefers each of us to bring away something of our own.

The same dancer starts and ends the performance. The lights fade on his back as he slowly turns his body away from us, his outstretched arms the last part to catch the light. This suggests that the dance continues after the performance ends, which is good news. It is with great pleasure and anticipation that we await Khan’s return to Jacob’s Pillow.