Turning of Bones
direction, choreography: Akram Khan
arranger, soundscape designer: Aditya Prakash
music extracts composed by: Jocelyn Pook, Ben Frost & Aditya Prakash
costume design: Gudrun Schretzmeier
lighting design: Mario Daszenies
creative associate & lead repetiteur: Mavin Khoo
rehearsal director: Angela Towler
repetiteurs: Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Jasper Narvaez
dancers: Rebecca Amoroso, Bruna Andrade, Tuti Cedeño, Andrew Cummings, Karlijn Dedroog, Barbara Melo Freire, Stefano Gallelli, Garance Goutard-Dekeyser, Shai Ottolenghi, Luca Pannacci, Alexandra Policaro, Arnau Redorta Ortiz, Sidney Elizabeth Turtschi, Giovanni Visone, Shawn Wu, Shori Yamamoto
premiere: Theaterhaus Stuttgart, 2025
duration: 60’
A Theaterhaus Stuttgart production / world premiere in co-production with COLOURS and Orsolina28 Art Foundation
Seismograph of the soul: There is a good reason why Akram Khan is known as a defining pacemaker of our time. After all, few choreographers have such a keen sense of the human psyche. Few, too, who sound the hidden depths as thoroughly as he does. Especially as Khan – and this is what makes his work stand out – always puts dance in specific contexts. The title “Turning of Bones” not only alludes to a ritual of remembrance Famadihana, practiced mainly in Madagascar, where people take the remains of their ancestors, wrapped in cloth, to reconnect with their heritage. They rewrite the names on the shrouds, carry the bones over their heads and dance with them. Famadihana could also describe the approach to this production, in which Akram Khan immerses himself in the history of his own choreographic works. The source material consisted of five of his classics, which he had created for himself as a dancer or for Akram Khan Company. They share one message: blindness and arrogance cause mankind to make the same mistakes throughout history. For Turning of Bones, Khan drew on “Vertical Road” from 2010, the group piece “iTMOi“ (In the Mind of Igor), created in 2013 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's “Le Sacre du Printemps” as well as “Jungle Book reimagined”. Also included is the striking “head dance“ from “DESH” about his father's homeland, Bangladesh, and the poignant piece “Mud of Sorrow”, digitally premiered during the height of the pandemic. All these elements have been further developed and tailored to the new overall structure of “Turning of Bones”. On an emotional level, they are not only linked by the original music by Aditya Prakash. Above all, there is a narrative framework that connects the scenes to form a new whole. It is the tale of two lovers who are tragically confronted with the theme of sacrifice and being sacrificed. In contrast to the elaborate stage designs and settings of the original versions, Akram Khan was aiming for a completely different, more abstract mood for the evening, placing dance and pure emotion at the center.
Around the turn of the millennium, Akram Khan took the London dance scene by storm with works like “Kaash” and “Ma”; invitations to international dance festivals soon followed. His arrival marked the beginning of a new era of intercultural exchange in European dance. Immigrant children like Khan, a Briton with roots in Bangladesh, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, a Belgian with Moroccan roots, brought together a wide range of genres, nationalities and stylistic layers. Their pieces called for openness and understanding, showcasing the exciting, artistically explosive results of an encounter between cultures free of prejudice. Akram Khan was born in London in 1974 to parents from Bangladesh. As a child, he began training in the classical Indian dance form Kathak and later went on to study contemporary dance as well. At the age of 10, he appeared as “Mowgli” in a production of “The Jungle Book” and at 13 in Peter Brook’s epic “Mahabharata”, a production whose visual language had a lasting influence on him. Khan created his first solo projects in the 1990s and founded the Akram Khan Company in 2000. His works combine Kathak’s consciousness of tradition with contemporary themes and movement. He himself is a virtuoso, multi-award-winning performer with a velvety movement style and a compelling stage presence. Khan thrives on collaboration with artists from other genres. He has danced with classical ballerinas, flamenco star Israel Galván and actress Juliette Binoche, worked with visual artists such as Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, with writer Hanif Kureishi and with rock bands. His music almost always comes from contemporary composers, and direct collaboration is central to his process. In 2012, he was celebrated for his choreographic contribution to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. In the early stages of his career, Akram Khan often created long solos for himself. Now he rarely performs, preferring to focus on choreographing for his London-based company as well as for other ensembles. His well-known works include “Zero Degrees”, “Sacred Monsters”, “Gnosis”, “Vertical Road”, “Desh”, “Torobaka”, “Chotto Desh”, “ItmoI”, “Xenos”, “Outwitting the Devil”… some of this titles also presented at the Belgrade Dance Festival. For the English National Ballet, he created the short work “Dust”, his contemporary version of the classic “Giselle” and “Creature”, which was adapted into a feature film in 2023. Thanks to his strong theatrical sensibility, Khan is able to achieve a striking visual impact with his works while using what are for the most part deliberately minimalistic sets. His enduring themes include the search for identity, the experience of being a stranger, saving nature from human greed, and the power of ancient philosophies and stories.
