![]() |
![]() National Ballet of China April 2008 New York, City Center by Rachel Straus |
||||||||
Bahok means carrier in Bengali. For Akram Khan—the Bangladeshi-British choreographer of Kathak-fusion fame—what is carried around in his new work bahok is a nomadic existence. In this tragic-comic dance theater piece for performers from six nations, home is nowhere. What that means for the choreography is similar. Khan’s performers from the National Ballet of China and from his own company move in the international language of virtuosity and speed. Only in certain moments did I see dance phrases that could be coined as ballet or break dancing, or as coming from someplace specific like India. Is globalization making indigenous dance a thing of the past? If bahok is any indication the answer is yes. At City Center where the New York premiere of Khan’s 85-minute work took place, the stage resembled an airport, and the dancers did what is generally done in departure lounges. They looked up at an electronic monitor and played with their electronic gadgets. “Please Wait. Delayed. Flight Cancelled. Water. Air. Sky. Earth. Home,” the digital monitor typically and mysteriously displayed through the course of the evening in block lettering, which in numbers and words whirred like a roll of a dice before a meaning congealed, and a dance section commenced. In bahok, there were moments of glee and genius. There were also some deadly boring sections, where the dancers spoke about being lost, which were punctuated by audience members leaving their seats for the street. In a duet, which occurring during the monitor’s display of “Delayed,” Andrej Petrovic became the bed rest of choice for Wang Yitong’s total exhaustion. Like a piece of cotton candy, Yitong stuck to Petrovic. She arched her pliant frame against his chest and floated her lips against his to his alarm and then excitement. No matter how hard he tried to extricate himself from her enveloping legs, which wrapped around his pelvis and neck, he couldn’t shake her. The well-known experience of having a seat mate who doesn’t observe the rules of personal space was taken to a fantastic extreme when under a spotlight, Petrovic and Yitong merged into one creature: half deity, half human, a vision both spiritual and sexual, expertly entwined like a karma sutra statue come to life. ![]() © Liu Yang
But for all the beauty and ingenuity Khan’s dancers created, bahok didn’t offer any resolution or meaningful statement about feeling homeless in a technologically interconnected world marked by constant traveling. Nor did the dancing, which borrowed from gymnastics, ballet, Tanztheater, improvisation and release techniques, forge its own style. The weakest moments came with the group dancing, where unison, frontal-faced movement prevailed, revealing that Khan has a ways to go as a choreographer of large-scale works. The energy and interest during these sections resided with composer Nitin Sawhney’s international selection of beats. They transformed the departure lounge into a discotheque, featuring danceable sounds from around the globe and giving these stupendous dancers the opportunity to streak the stage with their virtuosity like a jet piercing the sky.
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||