My parents are or rather were a very special mix: mum concentrated on movement (she is a choreographer with her own ballet school), father dealing with geometry and construction (engineer specialising in tarmacs and motorways) .
These completely different fields of interest helped in creating me as a designer (a degree in graphic design) but also as a curious personality, curious especially about other ways of expressing one's abilities.
I have an interest in dancers - people who able to be absolutely in control of their body -while I can only ride a bike and swim a little + I have never danced .
A fact that fascinates me the most is that they are able to remember complicated arrangements of movements, minute after minute, bar after bar - I seem to have a completely different kind of memory.
Thanks to my mum's professional contacts I had a chance to observe how choreographers work, though I have observed their cooperation with professional ballet dancers.
This time it was cooperation with somebody who also works with body as she is an actress (one of my favourite ones, I must admit) but does not think as a dancer/choreographer. I am talking about a work of dance theatre 'In-i' by Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan (with visual design by Anish Kapoor and music composition by Philip Sheppard).
Constantly reinventing herself French actress, trained as as hard as GI Jane to be able 'to keep up with the golden spitfire that is Khan' as Jenny Gilbert from Independent summed brutally these litres of sweat by describing months of hard work as 'mildly clumsy kinetic efforts of La Binoche' .
Ms Gilbert should have watched the documentary about the whole preparation process of this performance, recently shown on British tv, to be able to take into consideration her harsh oppinion. As it maybe sells the papers but does not do the justice to the performers.
Critics might be judgemental, that is their job, but I have watched the whole broadcast nevertheless, simply glued to the tv screen.
Especially fascinating moment comes 'when Khan takes the stand to tell his story, about when he was 10, and at the mosque, and owned up to the mullah about being enamoured of a non-Muslim girl at school. There is violence in his story, both implied and shockingly actual, and Khan transmits it grippingly. For a few minutes you forget the other soggy drivel, as Khan ricochets between voicing the fierce mullah and the terrified boy, then explodes in an angry rant, spitting out syllables – perhaps from the Koran, but perplexingly we're not told'
Khan is a fascinating performer, just type his name into Youtube to get a glimpse of his work as the show at the London National Theatre finished on 20 October 2008, way before I have planned my trip to London.
Bio note: Akram Khan was born in London in 1974 to Bangladeshi parents. As a child, he studied kathak, the north Indian classical dance form, won competitions and was cast in Peter Brook's 'Mahabharata' at the age of 14. After a dance degree, Khan began developing a highly personal style, mixing kathak with western contemporary dance. Multiculturalism being the buzzword everywhere in the arts, he couldn't have timed his arrival better. Yet his success is just as much due to a staggering technique, his charisma on stage, and a fierce intelligence that makes him a setter rather than a follower of fashion. Artists as diverse as the writer Hanif Kureishi, sculptor Antony Gormley, and even the ballerina Sylvie Guillem, have queued up to work with him.
full review here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/ini-lyttelton-theatre-london-936691.html
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