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4 hours ago
5
Akram Khan is a choreographer at his best when he seems to be working on instinct. Often with his work it’s less important to ask what it means, more how it feels; not to work out exactly how he’s meshed different dance forms or redrawn mythical stories, but to get immersed in its sensory impact.
Thikra has plenty going on in that area. The piece was made earlier this year for an arts festival at Wadi AlFann, a new “cultural destination” in AlUla, an ancient oasis city and trade route in the Saudi Arabian desert. It’s a collaboration with London-based Saudi artist Manal AlDowayan, who originally built her rocky set on the desert sand. And you can imagine the early scenes of the 60-minute piece having an impact in a vast outdoor setting. Khan has a strong graphic sense, the 12 dancers in unison in bold type and satisfying lines that cut and splice. It’s crisply danced by the all-female cast, all with long hair swishing in sync.
At the centre is a young woman dressed in white (Ching-Ying Chien) and what follows has the appearance of an initiation or sacrifice, perhaps an exorcism. In fact, in this mythological tale fabricated by Khan and AlDowayan, she is an ancestor, summoned by a tribe of women on this “night of remembering”, for a rebirth of sorts, a ritual healing from the past. It’s no dreamy-soft spiritual journey, but a place of anger and searching (as well as great beauty in compelling performances by Azusa Seyama Prioville as the matriarch, Nikita Goile one of her daughters). Samantha Hines is the supposed vessel for the ritual, but she’s like a beastly scavenger picking over Chien’s body, and then a mildly terrifying puppet master.
