Chotto Desh
DESH direction, original choreography: Akram Khan
Chotto Desh direction, adaptation: Sue Buckmaster (Theatre-Rites)
music: Jocelyn Pook
lighting design: Guy Hoare
stories imagined by: Karthika Naïr, Akram Khan (the grandmother's fable is taken from the book The Honey Hunter)
written by: Karthika Naïr, Sue Buckmaster, Akram Khan
assistant choreographer: Jose Agudo
rehearsal director: Amy Butler
voices: Leesa Gazi (grandmother), Sreya Andrisha Gazi (Jui)
original visual design: Tim Yip
original visual animation: Yeast Culture
painted head sequence created by: Damien Jalet, Akram Khan
‘Bleeding Soles’ lyrics written by: Leesa Gazi
singers: Melanie Pappenheim, Sohini Alam, Jocelyn Pook (voice, viola, piano), Tanja Tzarovska, Jeremy Schonfield
managing director: Isabel Tamen
production manager: Michael Cunningham
tour management: Svitlana Bil
duration: 50’
premiere: DanceEast, Ipswich, 2015. / The Mac, Belfast, 2023.
performers: Jasper Narvaez, Nico Ricchini
Originally co-commissioned by MOKO Dance, Akram Khan Company, Sadler’s Wells London, DanceEast, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Mercat de les Flors Barcelona, Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2016 and Stratford Circus Arts Centre. Supported by Arts Council England
“Chotto Desh“, meaning “small homeland“, draws on Khan’s unique quality of cross-cultural storytelling, creating a compelling tale of a young man’s dreams and memories from Britain to Bangladesh. Using a unique mix of dance, text, visuals and sound, “Chotto Desh“ celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the modern world and promises to be a magical, thrilling and poignant dance theatre experience for families to enjoy together.
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 these 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.
Using a mixture of styles and storytelling, Khan demystifies the art of dance. Vibrant and vivid.
© The List
Here is a bona fide great piece of dance, with resonance that go deep beneath its surface moves.
© The Stage
A real delight. It mixes reality and mythology to explore rebellion, identity and homeland.
© The Guardian
A heart-warming story of our connections to the past, to family and, most importantly, the need to find your own path... will captivate an audience of any age.
© The Stage
