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Akram Khan Wins Best New Dance Production at the Olivier Awards 2012

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IMAGES: http://bit.ly/DESHImages

On receiving the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, Akram Khan, the internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer, said:

“Akram Khan Company has always produced thoughtful and ambitious dance productions for the international stage and we are honoured to have won the Olivier Award.  DESH, and a great deal of my work, is about taking human themes to new and unexpected places, crossing cultural barriers.  The success of this production would not have been possible without the support of the Curve Theatre Leicester, Sadler’s Wells and the brilliant collaborators and artists I have been involved with including my producer Farooq Chaudhry.  I am hugely grateful to them all.”  

Akram Khan’s next major project is working as part of Danny Boyle’s team for the Isles of Wonder Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games. His performance at the Opening Ceremony will be his first public performance in 2012.

Akram Khan, currently recovering from Achilles tendon injury, will recommence performances of DESH in October at Sadler’s Wells. 

DESH, meaning 'homeland' in Bengali, is one of Khan’s most personal works to date. This full-length contemporary dance solo, is both intimate and epic, it 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 symbolises and embodies the chaos, but also hope of Bangladesh and its people. DESH draws together multiple tales of land, nation and resistance that converge into the body and voice of one man trying to find balance in an unstable world.

For DESH, Akram Khan teamed up with a world-class assemblage of collaborators including:

  • Oscar-winning visual artist Tim Yip (production designer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
  • Olivier Award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook
  • Fellow Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist and lighting designer Michael Hulls
  • Writer and poet Karthika Nair
  • Slam-poet PolarBear

DESH is sponsored by COLAS, and co-produced by MC2: Grenoble, Curve Theatre, Leicester, Sadler’s Wells London, Théâtres 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.

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About Akram Khan Company
Akram Khan Company was founded by Akram Khan and his producer Farooq Chaudhry in 2000.  The company has established a worldwide reputation for work that is ambitious, powerful, fresh, relevant and profoundly moving. Few dance artists are able to reach out to audiences in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Australia and Asia and are able to be understood and enjoyed by them in the way Khan is. A classicist and a modernist, the storytelling in Khan’s work has an uncanny ability to reflect our times and in the past ten years he has reinvigorated perceptions of dance, other art forms and cultures. The company has won an array of awards including in 2011 the Critics' Circle National Dance Award for ‘Best Modern Choreography’ (Vertical Road) and the South Bank Sky Arts Dance Award (Gnosis). Khan was awarded the ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award in January 2011.  The company has also collaborated with some of the world’s best- known performers and artists including Kylie Minogue, Juliette Binoche, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Sylvie Guillem, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Nitin Sawhney.  

DESH Artistic credits:

  • Artistic Direction, Choreography, Performance Akram Khan
  • Visual Design Tim Yip
  • Music Composition Jocelyn Pook
  • Lighting Design Michael Hulls
  • Stories imagined by Karthika Nair, Akram Khan
  • Written by Karthika Nair, Akram Khan, Polar Bear
  • Dramaturge Ruth Little
  • Video Animation Yeast Culture
  • Set Construction Sander Loonen (Arp Theatre)
  • Technical Director Fabiana Piccioli
  • Creative Acting Director Zoë Nathenson
  • Eshita’s Voice - Sreya Andrisha Gazi
  • Jui’s Voice - Eesha Desai
  • Producer Farooq Chaudhry

Akram Khan gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the following artists:
Damien Jalet (devised Painted Head Sequence with Akram Khan), Leesa Gazi (Culture Coordinator / Voice Artist), Steve Parr (music recording and mixing), Samuel Lefeuvre, Nicola Monaco, Andrei Nazarenko, Sebastien Ramirez, RootlessRoot (Linda Kapetanea & Jozef Frucek), Shantala Shivalingappa, Kate Braithwaite, Sue Buckmaster, Renee Castle, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Daniel Hart, Syed Shamsul Haq, Chris Janschke, Labik Kamal, Urmee Mazher, Bhasker Patel, Shamsur Rahman and the singers Sohini Alam, Natacha Atlas, Melanie Pappenheim, Jeremy Schonfield and Tanja Tzarovska.

Special thanks to Michel Orier, Paul Kerryson, Alistair Spalding, Béatrice Abeille Robin, Mr & Mrs Khan, Raihana Ahmad, Shahidul Alam, Eeshita Azad, British Council Bangladesh, Ruby Ghuznavi (textile curator), Irene Lu, Tareque Masud, Ramendu Majumdar (ITI), Susan Mearns (ActionAid), NariMaitree, Eela Muhaimin, Shlomo, Anne-Marie Bigby, Amy Hollis, Gemma Ottey and Yohan Zeitoun.

Akram Khan Company gratefully acknowledges the support of the Bangladesh High Commission, London

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