After four years of absence from the Montreal scene, renowned choreographer Akram Khan is back and will present his piece Jungle Book reimagined from 1er to November 4, at the Maisonneuve theater. For the English choreographer, this piece, performed for the first time last year, is his most “direct”, the most punchy, since it evokes global warming through the eyes of a refugee, Mowgli .
It was in full confinement that the choreographer decided to take up the famous story of Jungle Book to make it a choreographic piece. For him, Jungle Book reimagined was a good opportunity to “change lenses” on this famous story. “The starting point, the point of view of a story always reflects the person telling the story. However, I wanted to change the angle on the Jungle Book, to find a direction that we had not yet explored or that we had avoided,” he explains. To change the narrative, the choreographer then decided to make the different animals in the story speak, to have their point of view. “For me, it was important to express humanity through animals. Usually we identify with Mowgli, because he is human, here I wanted us to put ourselves in the place of the animals,” he says.
In collaboration with his dancers, Akram Khan studied animal movements extensively to create a choreographic vocabulary. “We watched a lot of documentaries, we also read. The idea was not to replicate the gestures of animals, that was not my goal, but to transcend what we have learned, to make it a dance based on truth, something scientific. We also went into the psychology of animals, also in relation to humans. How do animals feel? If Baloo danced in a cage? If monkeys were humans? » he asked himself during the process.
Indeed, for Mr. Khan, different points of view, and nuances, are essential in our societies. However, they are sometimes missing. “In our modern way of thinking, you always have to choose a side, true, false, white, black, like, don’t like… It’s simpler. While human relationships are much more complex than that, they have many more layers. We want to oversimplify things when good contains evil, and vice versa, he explains. In bharata natyam [la danse classique indienne], we cannot say if we are right or wrong, we question those who make choices, and that proves that we are human. »
In addition to the relational aspect that was important to him, Akram Khan wanted to return to this work in which he himself played, at the age of 10, in an Indian production. A stage in his life which allowed him to assert himself. “I really liked superheroes, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, etc., but I had never seen a hero, a main character of color. I couldn’t relate, they didn’t look like me. Whereas with Mowgli, I told myself that anything was possible! » he remembers.
Akram Khan was inspired by his daughter, then eight years old, to develop his work. She gave her opinion, proposed ideas and attended team meetings. “One of the things she said to me was ‘what are you going to convey?’ and it had a big impact on me. I asked myself what we are leaving for the next generation, and the answer, unfortunately, is chaos in many aspects,” he says.
A hope for change
“I have always evoked nature in my pieces through metaphors, poetry, but now, we can no longer act like that, I had to go directly into people’s faces with this work,” explains Akram Khan when talking about his play Jungle Book reimagined.
Anxious, pessimistic, optimistic, desperate… Personally, Akram Khan feels an overflow of emotion regarding nature and climate change. “Sometimes I pretend it doesn’t exist, I lie to myself, but it will come to my door. The water will arrive at our doorstep. We think we are far away, but we are not. The world will live thousands of years after us, we are only fragments in time of its history. Our ego and modern patriarchy are very dangerous, because they have separated nature from human actions,” he worries.
For the family man, nature takes revenge in some way for what humans have done to him. A scenario already present in very ancient myths. “ The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the first myths discovered throughout humanity and it already spoke of climate change, notably through the Flood,” he recalls.
“My daughter told me “you talk about changes, but you don’t want things to change”. And she is right, this is the problem of modern humans: wanting change without doing anything,” thinks the artist. According to him, change necessarily comes with resistance, and change must come from the person themselves, not from someone else. With Jungle Book reimagined, he put his personal reflections on stage and he hopes that it will resonate with as many people as possible, from all generations. “I think this is my first intentionally family show, I wanted to create a bridge between adults and children. Climate change concerns us all,” he says.
Finally, Akram Khan wishes with this show to “start discussions” concerning the environment and our relationships with nature. “People change when they have been hurt enough, when they have seen enough, when they have learned enough, when they have been inspired to change,” he concludes. Changes do not happen all at once; persistence and dialogue are required. I hope that Jungle Book reimagined will help change some people. »