© Jeanette Bak
A choreographer digs up his own bones, shakes them thoroughly and rearranges them: Akram Khan’s first world premiere for Gauthier Dance brings together excerpts from five of his works in a new, contemporary context. The martial-sounding title alludes to a ceremony commemorating the dead in Madagascar known as Famadihana, or the “turning of the bones” festival. In this tradition, the dead are exhumed every few years and wrapped in new silk cloths to honour them. Then, people dance with them.
“I chose these scenes very carefully,” says the choreographer, “because I feel that they have been the most predominant in my thinking throughout my entire career – whether they deal with our relationship to the Earth, with life and death, with humanity or with the search for identity. These particular excerpts reflect my past, but even more so, they reflect how I feel right now.” All the scenes have been changed and are now part of a large arc, a journey like the one in Khan’s piece “Vertical Road”. There, a wandering, lonely soul re-encounters mankind, whose goal-bound, horizontal way of life she leaves to find the vertical journey upwards, into the spiritual world.
The curated works include excerpts from Jungle Book, Mud of Sorrow, Desh, ItMoi and Insirgents
Artists
Choreographer: Akram Khan
Artists: Gauthier Dance
Saturday, June 14, 2025 - 7:30 p.m.
Open Air Stage
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