a letter to the future: Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined coming to The Lowry, Salford
Saturday 13th May 2023
The Lowry is delighted to bring Akram Khan’s new dance-theatre production Jungle Book reimagined to Salford on Saturday 13th May. Based on Rudyard Kipling’s family classic, Khan and his team reinvent the journey of Mowgli through the eyes of a climate refugee, as part of a world tour.
Featuring an original score by award-winning composer and musician Jocelyn Pook, ten international dancers and state-of-the-art animation and visuals by YeastCulture, Jungle Book reimagined tells a story about our intrinsic need to belong and bond with others, placing respect for our natural world at its heart. The show is set in a deserted city which has been reclaimed by nature.
Sustainability has been a key focus for the creative team. The world on stage is brought to life through YeastCulture’s animation and projection by Adam Smith and Nick Hillel, allowing the company to tour more sustainably with minimal sets. YeastCulture uses innovative ways to connect the stage, video and the screen into one integrated audience experience, they previously worked with Khan on the animation for DESH.
The physical set has also been designed with sustainability in mind, made of cardboard boxes, of which some are provided by each tour venue. Visual stage design is by award-winning stage designer Miriam Buether.
Eckhard Thiemann, Programming Associate: Dance at The Lowry said: Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined touched me deeply. It communicates through dialogue, gestures, dance and stunning projections an emotionally stirring call for respect and care for all living beings on our planet.
The script, delivered in voiceover, is by writer and actor Tariq Jordan and dramaturgy is by Sharon Clark, Creative Director of theatre company Raucous. Sound design comes from multi award-winning Gareth Fry and lighting is by Michael Hulls.
In over 20 years, Akram Khan Company has become one of the foremost innovative dance companies in the world. The programmes range from kathak and modern solos to artist-to-artist collaborations and ensemble productions. The company has a major international presence and enjoys busy tours that reach out to many cultures across the globe.
Akram Khan said, “The Jungle Book’s story has always been close to me. Not only because I had played the role of Mowgli in an Indian dance production at age 10, but more because of the deep lessons it held within it, that I have since carried with me throughout my life.
“I felt compelled to share its story with children and adults from all cultures, but the lens of my Jungle Book is one where the dancers’ bodies are an archive for nature and the animals threatened by the irresponsible behaviour of humans.”
Jungle Book reimagined is a letter to the future, a warning of the world we could pass on to future generations if we don’t change the way humans live alongside nature. It comes to The Lowry, Salford on Saturday 13th May with performances at 3pm and 7:30pm For more information and tickets visit www.thelowry.com.
ENDS
For further information or to arrange interviews contact jennifer.dean@thelowry.com. For hi-res images visit www.flickr.com
LISTING INFORMATION
Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined
The Lowry, Salford
Saturday 13th May, 3pm and 7:30pm
Tickets: £15 – £29
Box Office: 0161 876 2000 or www.thelowry.com
Age guidance: 10+
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Akram Khan
Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists today. In the last 22 years he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as Jungle Book reimagined, Outwitting the Devil, XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.
As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan’s choreography is the embodiment of shared exploration across multiple disciplines and cultures. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue and indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.
Khan’s work is recognised as being profoundly moving, in which his intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic. A highlight of his career was the creation of a section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was received with unanimous acclaim.
As a choreographer, Khan has developed a close collaboration with English National Ballet. He created the short piece Dust, part of the Lest We Forget programme, which led to an invitation to create his own critically acclaimed version of the iconic romantic ballet Giselle. In recent years, Khan has moved into television, specifically documentaries. He has created three documentaries with Swan Films for Channel 4, the Sky Arts documentary series Why Do We Dance, and an episode of the Netflix series MOVE.
Khan has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career including two Laurence Olivier Awards, the Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award), the prestigious ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award at the Edinburgh International Festival, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and nine Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005. Last year he was announced as the new Chancellor of De Montfort University, and he is also an Honorary Graduate of University of London as well as Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban. Khan is an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London as well as Curve.
About Mavin Khoo
Mavin Khoo is internationally recognised as a dance artist, teacher, choreographer and artist scholar. Khoo’s initial training was in Malaysia. He then pursued his training in Bharatanatyam intensively under the legendary dance maestro Padma Shri Adyar K. Lakshman in India. As a contemporary dance artist, Khoo has worked with Wayne McGregor, Akram Khan, Shobana Jeyasingh and many others. Khoo founded mavinkhooDance in 2003. He was Artistic Director of ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble between 2014 – 2017. Khoo currently maintains his touring work as a mature artist with a focus on solo Bharatanatyam performances and specifically commissioned contemporary duet works. Khoo also worked as rehearsal director for Akram Khan Company productions iTMOi, XENOS, Outwitting the Devil and worked alongside Akram Khan on Giselle (English National Ballet). In 2019, Khoo was appointed Akram Khan Company Creative Associate.
About Tariq Jordan
Tariq Jordan is a writer, actor, and practitioner of proud Russian-Jewish and Iraqi-Muslim heritage. Jordan graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2007 and has worked extensively as an actor for stage and screen since. Jordan’s debut play ALI AND DAHLIA, inspired by his experiences working in Palestine, premiered at the Pleasance Theatre Islington in spring 2019 directed by Kerry Michael MBE. The play received three OffWestEnd Award nominations, including Most Promising New Playwright, and was a finalist for the Best Play Award in the 2020 Writers’ Guild Awards. Jordan was a member of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE Writers Collective. He is currently developing his next play and a host of exciting new ideas for television.
About Sharon Clark
Sharon Clark is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and Creative Director of the immersive, multidisciplinary theatre company Raucous. Clark has previously worked with the National Theatre, the RSC, Theatre 503, Arcola, Theatre 503, New Diorama, Aardman Animations, Bath Theatre Royal, Sherman Cymru, Watford Palace Theatre and Bristol Old Vic (where she was Literary Producer). In 2017 Clark was awarded a Bruntwood Judge’s Prize for Playwriting and her plays have also been shortlisted for the Yale Drama Prize and the PapaTango Prize. In 2019 Clark was awarded a Digital Fellowship with the RSC and the spatial computing company, Magic Leap. Clark is a resident artist at Bristol’s Pervasive Media Studio, a senior lecturer in writing for performance at UWE and writes for film.
About Jocelyn Pook
Jocelyn Pook is an award-winning British composer and musician known for her unique and versatile voice in contemporary music. Pook’s work spans cultures and genres ranging from orchestral and choral to minimal, frequently inspired by found sound and field recordings and conjuring evocative soundscapes. Pook is also known for her highly acclaimed film scores such as The Wife, The Merchant of Venice, Brick Lane, and Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. In 2018, Pook won the BAFTA for Best Original Score for the TV film of Mike Bartlett’s play King Charles III. Pook’s previous collaborations with Akram Khan include scores for Dust (from English National Ballet’s Lest We Forget) and the much-celebrated score for DESH, for which she was awarded the British Composer Award in 2012.
About Gareth Fry
Gareth Fry is a multi-award-winning sound designer, best known for his cutting-edge work in theatre. Dance includes The Language of Kindness (Wayward), Stones of Venice, Invisible Cities (MIF, 59 Productions & Rambert), Othello (Frantic Assembly), John (DV8). Other productions include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Complicité’s The Encounter; Bedknobs & Broomsticks, and the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. He is the author of Sound Design for the Stage. Awards for best sound design include three Olivier Awards, two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, two Helpmann Awards and an Evening Standard award.
About Michael Hulls
Michael Hulls has worked exclusively in dance over the last 20 years, particularly with choreographers Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan, and established a reputation as a “choreographer of light”. His collaborations with Russell Maliphant have won international critical acclaim and many awards. Hulls has worked with Akram Khan over many years on productions including In-I, DESH, TOROBAKA, Until the Lions, XENOS and most recently Creature. In 2009, Hulls became a Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist. In 2010, his contribution to dance was recognised with his entry into the Oxford Dictionary of Dance, as only the fourth lighting designer to be given an entry. In 2014 Hulls received the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.
About Miriam Buether
Miriam Buether is an award-winning stage designer working internationally in theatre, opera, and dance. Born in Berlin, Buether trained in costume design at Akademie für Kostüm Design in Hamburg, and in theatre design at Central Saint Martin’s, London. Recent work includes To Kill a Mockingbird, Three Tall Women and A Doll’s House 2 on Broadway, The Jungle for the Young Vic, subsequently transferring to the West End and New York, and Caryl Churchill’s What If Only for the Royal Court. Buether won The Linbury Prize for Stage Design in 1999 and received the Evening Standard Best Design Award in 2010 for Earthquakes in London and Sucker Punch, and again in 2018 for The Jungle.
About Nick Hillel
Nick Hillel is a video artist, producer and video designer based in London. In 1998 Hillel graduated from a film and politics degree and went on to direct a number of documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 before establishing the digital media company YeastCulture. The first major project was to create visuals for Nitin Sawhney’s global Prophesy tour. Hillel then went on to produce and direct visuals for artists including Akram Khan (DESH), Philhramonia Orchestra (RE-RITE and Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle), Simon Rattle and the LSO (Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre), Courtney Pine (Live tour), The Berliner Philharmoniker and Peter Sellars (Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen), Boy Blue’s The Five, Matthew Herbert (Big Band Tour) and Hussein Chalayan (Gravity Fatigue) at Sadler’s Wells.
About Adam Smith
Adam Smith is an award-winning Animation and Art Director who has been working in live dance, theatre, and music for over a decade. Smith graduated from Southampton Solent University in 2005 with a degree in animation and moved straight into television and film before being introduced to creating animation for live performances and video design by YeastCulture. Working with YeastCulture his first piece was the animation for Akram Khan’s DESH. Smith has since gone on to create work for Ballet, Contemporary Dance and Opera, as well as classical and contemporary music with productions such as The Nutcracker and I, The Cunning Little Vixen, Petrushka and Nitin Sawhney’s Dystopian Dream with Wang Ramirez.
About YeastCulture
YeastCulture was established in London in 1999 as a space to explore innovative ways of connecting the stage, video, and the screen into one integrated audience experience. Video design and projection mapping creations have since featured in orchestral performances, contemporary dance, ballet, theatre, gallery installations as well as visuals for live bands for international tours. Past productions include collaborations with Sir Simon Rattle, Esa Pekka Salonen, Akram Khan, Ludovico Einaudi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Nitin Sawhney, Hussein Chalayan, Cirque du Soleil, Michael Nyman, The Beastie Boys, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmoniker, Clod Ensemble, Dickson MBi, George Fenton and The V&A. The company works across art forms blending film, live performance, animation, documentary, set design and projection mapping.