Rehearsals for Akram Khan's DustEnglish National Ballet
Read the Interview here
Akram, is this is the first time you’ve worked with a full ballet company?
Yes. I’ve been asked a lot, but I’ve held the idea at bay for about seven years. People have been a bit horrified when I said no. But it was really Tamara’s vision and passion that inspired me finally to agree. It’s a challenge that she’s making, to take ballet somewhere else. It can be so risky to try, and to me to try takes courage. Nijinsky and Diaghilev –they tried.
Studio rehearsals for Akram Khan's DustEnglish National Ballet
You come from one powerful classical tradition, Indian kathak – is it strange working with another powerful classical tradition?
Actually I really admire classical bodies, because I was trained classically. My biggest heroes when I was growing up were Nureyev and Baryshnikov – with them their art and their craftsmanship is such that it’s no longer important what form it is any more. A classical ballet company is familiar to me in its attitude, in its approach, and so in a sense I felt at home. And yet in a new place
I’m not trying to make English National Ballet’s dancers into my dancers, but I’m trying to find myself in their bodies. What ballet dancers can do is very different from what my own dancers do. It was very beautiful to see the transformation when they take my material and the essence of my aesthetic, and give it something new. It’s a big learning curve on both sides
Studio rehearsals for Akram Khan's DustEnglish National Ballet
Are you using pointe shoes?
No. I’ve always been fascinated by pointe shoes, I’ve watched Sylvie [Guillem] doing it, but I’d need time to understand it and develop a vocabulary for that. For my own vocabulary I don’t want them in pointe shoes. The other thing is I couldn’t point my feet to save my life – I tried to go on pointe, but I just cried!
Studio rehearsals for Akram Khan's DustEnglish National Ballet
What is your piece about?
The piece is inspired by two things. First, the concept of a trench, of the young men and old men all going into trenches, and disappearing. The other substantial part was inspired by the women. In the First World War there was a huge social shift towards women. They needed weapons made for the war, they needed a huge workforce. I felt this shift in role was interesting.
Studio rehearsals for Akram Khan's DustEnglish National Ballet
They knew they would be letting go of fathers, husbands, and sons; they might lose them. Yet they were making weapons that would kill others’ fathers, husbands, and sons. It didn’t matter which side you were on – they both felt loss and death. But in order for someone to live, someone else was putting their life on the line. That cyclical thing was what I wanted to explore.
Jocelyn Pook, my composer (who also worked with me on DESH), presented something to me that is very touching. It’s a little recording of a man, maybe in the army, doing an interview and singing what they would sing in the trenches. A week or a few weeks later, he was dead.
There is something very fragile about his voice and mood. He knew he had to be positive, but death would come to some of them. Somehow this song made him sound positive.
