Kaash

Created in 2002 by IT Dansa, Kaash (“if only” in Hindi) is one of the main pieces by Akram Khan. Considered as a plastic shock by observers, the piece was the starting point of the choreographer’s international recognition. His collaboration with Anish Kapoor for the stage design, as well as the chiselled musical score by the composer Nitin Sawhney are far from being stranger to this success… Between shadow and light, Kaash defies time and embodies perfectly Akram Khan’s will to build bridges between contemporary and Indian kathak dances.

“ Kaash deploys a dynamic unlike any other and a dazzling gesture. Taken out of a sort of continuous flow, the choreography, which is stunningly speed, lets appear a movement transparency as almost threatened of fading away. The bodies of the five interpreters are carried away in this unsteady dynamic. Their complex movements, which are structured and moulded by intense accelerations, succeeded by fascinating slow motion, triggers a feeling of weightlessness or amazement. This precise, fleet and sharp physicality plunges the dancers and the audience into the theory of chaos.”

Agnès Izrine, La Terrasse

“At first, bodies sprang, carried away by gusts to the sound of dry drumming. Then, luminous frequencies oscillating between darkness and glow created an atmospheric scan which wouldn’t grow dim for the whole performance. With this piece in which the choreographer combined, not without strength, Indian Kathak dance and the contemporary one, he imposed an urgent style, with a high accuracy, which clear and sharp beauty was mesmerizing.”

Rosita Boisseau, Télérama