Akram Khan's Dance Masterpiece: DESH

Akram Khan’s smash-hit solo show DESH returns to Sadler’s Wells in October after receiving endless praise from critics, winning an Olivier Award and being nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award.

The run heralds the return of Akram Khan to the international dance stage in almost a year following an Achilles tendon injury in January, which postponed the production’s run at Sadler’s Wells in February 2012. The performance will follow Akram Khan’s collaboration with Danny Boyle for the Olympics Opening Ceremony in July – the most watched show on earth.

DESH, meaning 'homeland' in Bengali, is one of Khan’s most personal works to date. At once intimate and epic, DESH explores human fragility in the face of natural forces, confronts the power of our personal heritage and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.

Moving between Britain and Bangladesh DESH creates a completely new environment on stage that symbolizes and embodies the chaos, but also hope of Bangladesh and its people.

For DESH, Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Khan has teamed up with a world-class assemblage of collaborators:

Oscar-winning visual artist Tim Yip (production designer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

Fellow Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist and lighting designer Michael Hulls

Writer and poet Karthika Nair

Olivier Award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook

Slam-poet PolarBear

Akram Khan says: “2012 has been a incredible year for Akram Khan Company with my Achilles tendon injury, involvement in the Olympics Opening Ceremony and now DESH returning to Sadler’s Wells in October. It was heartbreaking to cancel the Sadler’s Wells dates earlier in February this year and I am excited to perform there once again.

“The voice of this journey is Bengali, the first language and sounds I heard as a child.  Bengali provokes thoughts of home, but despite being at my core, I cannot dream or think in Bengali, only in English.  This duality of self, of origin and of lives lived is explored through DESH, together with the elements of earth and water that are central to Bangladeshi culture and the sad reality that Bangladesh is likely to be one of the first countries to perish under the rising sea levels caused by world environmental pollution: our disposable culture wiping away the country of my ancestors.”

DESH is sponsored by COLAS, and co-produced by MC2: Grenoble, Curve Theatre, Leicester, Sadler’s Wells London, Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Concertgebouw Brugge.  The work has been produced during residencies at Curve Theatre, Leicester and MC2: Grenoble.

Akram Khan is an Associate Artist of MC2: Grenoble and Sadler’s Wells, London in a special international co-operation.

Akram Khan Company is supported by Arts Council England.

Learn more at: http://www.akramkhancompany.net/

Images credited to: Richard Haughton