Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart

Seismograph of the soul: Akram Khan's reputation as a formative pacemaker of our time is no coincidence. There are few choreographers with such a keen sense of the human psyche. Few, too, who plumb hidden depths as thoroughly as he does. Especially as Akram Khan - and this is what makes his work so special - always locates dance in very specific contexts. Be it the First World War in XENOS, the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic in Outwitting the Devil, premiered at the COLOURS Festival 2019, or most recently the maltreated nature in the climate crisis with Jungle Book Reimagined.

In summer 2025, British star choreographer and dancer Akram Khan will work with Gauthier Dance for the first time. He will further develop excerpts from three productions that have become classics, which he created for himself or the Akram Khan Company. The title Turning of Bones not only alludes to a ritual of remembrance practiced mainly in Madagascar - Famadihana, in which people retrieve the shrouded remains of their ancestors from their graves in order to reconnect with their ancestors and their heritage. They refresh the names on the shrouds, carry the bones above their heads and dance with them. Famadihana could indeed also describe the approach to this production, in which Akram Khan immerses himself in the history of his own works. The program combines scenes from the group piece iTMOi (In the Mind of Igor), created in 2013 for the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, the striking "Head Dance" from the full-length solo DESH about his father's homeland, Bangladesh, and the poignant pas de deux Mud of Sorrow, digitally premiered during the pandemic winter of 2021. The selection focuses on the feeling of unease and the search for meaning that define our increasingly disoriented society. The excerpts are interwoven via newly composed music by Aditya Prakash and result in a new creation that gives the piece its title: Turning of Bones. Khan draws inspiration from his short film INSIRGENTS from 2023, which deals with the phenomenon of the mob and how violence is passed on from generation to generation.

In contrast to the elaborate stage sets and settings of the original versions, Akram Khan is aiming for a completely different, more abstract mood for this evening, focusing on dance and pure emotion. One thing is already clear: this uncompromising, absolutely challenging approach meets a congenial company at Gauthier Dance