Akram Khan

THIRD CATALOGUE

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14 NOV 8.30 pm

AUDITORIUM CONCILIAZIONE

National Premiere
A powerful warrior, a singer of ancestral stories, an instrument of rhythm: many are the countenances and faces that Akram Khan will take up in “Third Catalogue“, the last episode of his trilogy on Hindu myths that includes “Polaroid Feet” and “Ronin”. In fact, if the Anglo-Indian choreographer has emerged as one of the strongest personalities of new European dance, he owes it to a highly personal choreographic language developed from kathak, the ancient northern Indian dance of which he is considered to be one of the finest western performers.
And “Third Catalogue” is the first opportunity admirers in Rome will have to see Khan in a traditional kathak choreography.
A choreography that tells the events surrounding Abhimanyu, the hero of the “Mahabharata” epic who, while still in his mother’s belly, learns how to penetrate, but not to exit, the “chakravyuha”, the impregnable phalanx of the enemy. Inside the “chakravyuha”, he remains cut-off from his comrades-inarms and is finally overcome by the sheer multitudes in an epic fight that sees him destroy some of his deadliest foes.
A broad narration, with an unrestrainable crescendo, pauses, unshackled accelerations, all against a backdrop of eastern colour and awesomeness: Khan has the force of the warrior and the blitheness of a butterfly, holding an exemplary dialogue with a quartet of musicians thanks to the rhythm of the harness-bell that is fastened to his ankles as prescribed by Indian tradition.
Divided in two parts, the show includes in the first one a solo by Khan, and in the second a choreography by Kumudini Lakhia, one of India’s major kathak artists.

Akram Khan was born 33 years ago in the suburbs of London into a family from Bangladesh. He is the most acclaimed choreographer of his generation in the United Kingdom. He has drawn from the Indian traditional kathak repertoire and combined it with western contemporary dance. A fascinating mix of two different choreographic languages of which Akram Khan offers an absolutely unique synthesis. He has been one of the highlights of Romaeuropa Festival for three years, starting from 2002; in 2006 with Sylvie Guillem in Sacred Monsters.

Co-presentation in Rome:
Romaeuropa Festival 2007, Accademia Filarmonica Romana and Auditorium Conciliazione

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