Amal Choucri Catta on storytelling for the future Ma dance performance. Akram Khan Company; composer Riccardo Nova; artistic director Akram Khan. Venue: Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 11 and 12 December, 8pm "To know is nothing, to imagine is everything," says Akram Khan, founder and director of the prestigious Akram Khan Company, based in England and currently touring the world. He performed two nights at the Cairo Opera House's Main Hall. This was a medley of "Kathak" and contemporary dance traditions, in quest of a new body language, of an extended dance vocabulary, paired with some amusing storytelling, Asian music by Riccardo Nova with vocals by Fahim Mazhar, fabulous Mrindanga percussion by Manjunath, excellent cello sequences by Natalie Rozario and melodies on the flute by Lisa Mallet. Khan's individual dance language, drawing on his Indian roots, has already won him a number of awards as well as audiences' and critics' appreciation. Khan's production of his famed Ma at Cairo Opera's Main Hall last week took off with two female dancers walking onto centre stage. Each stood on one leg, her other leg lifted up like the trunk of a tree, the two dancers' heads were bent low and their hands touched the ground. In this particularly uncomfortable position, they told the audience the tale of a girl who grew up and became a woman. "After some time, she discovered she could not have children," the story goes. So she prayed to God to give her children. One day she found some seeds in the house, planted them and started to take care of them. Time passed, and though the plants were growing, she still could not have children. So she prayed to God, saying: "Why are you so hard on me? I pray to you each day, but you do not listen. Why do I still not have any children?" God replied: "Do you remember the seed you found one day in your house and how you took such care of them until they grew into tall an beautiful trees? These trees are now your children, because what you felt for them is the same a mother feels for her child." Having told their tale the dancers returned to their feet and walked away. Sequences of that kind were numerous and often breathtaking even if they did not appeal to all viewers. Ma is the tale of motherhood, of the motherly instinct and of the relationship between people and their land. There is some excellent choreography and, above all, there is some astounding "sculpted lighting" by Mikki Kunitu who has an extraordinary way of using darkness to sharpen the viewers' senses before showering them suddenly with a blinding blaze of white light, turning two-dimensional visions into three-dimensional ones and the latter into imaginary images that seem to be coming from nowhere before disappearing into oblivion. Such was, for instance, the human form slowly descending on invisible metal ropes, bathed in dim light behind the women, before vanishing into the stage's ambiguous darkness. Another sequence that demonstrated Kunitu's dexterous lighting was that of the couple evolving centre-stage while their huge shadows were projected onto the backdrop. Or take the example of the giant figures invading the stage like extraterrestrials arriving in the mysterious light of a parallel universe. These and many other visions were virtuoso sequences that never failed to amaze the audience. It must, however, be said that there were quite a few monotonous, rather repetitive sequences. Texts and songs were often too long and the entire work too abstract. It is nevertheless clear that this production is the work of highly talented young artists who try to create a universal artistic language. As Khan stated in 2004: "It is a reflection of what I am today, which is to be in a state of confusion, where boundaries are broken, languages of origin are left behind and instead, individual experiences are pushed forward to create new boundaries and a singular language that becomes universal to us all..." For him, storytelling is central: "It is the research of Kathak that will allow us slowly to become storytellers -- Kathakers -- of a new breed, with a unique voice, with new boundaries and new stories." Performing around the world as a teenager, Khan worked with Pandit Ravi Shankar in The Jungle Book and in Peter Brook's Mahabharata. He graduated with honours from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and launched his own company in 2000. He already had an established career as solo artist when teeming up with Farouk Chaudhry, currently the company's producer, who initiated his move to the prestigious X-Group choreographic project at the "Performing Arts Research Training Studios" in Belgium. During this period he presented the solo work Loose in Flight at the British Dance Edition in Newcastle, which proved to be a runaway success and grabbed the attention of British and international promoters alike. His touring programmes have featured in leading dance festivals and venues all over the globe, often playing to full houses and rave reviews. Khan's repertory includes Polaroid Feet, Roni, Related Rocks, Roach and others. In 2004 the company was made a fixed term client of the Arts Council, UK, and in June 2004 Khan was awarded an honorary doctorate of arts from De Montfort University for his contribution to the arts community in England. His two performances at Cairo Opera's Main Hall were not entirely to the liking of the audiences, who are unfamiliar with Kathak. They were, nevertheless, of a high artistic calibre. Khan lives in a world that goes beyond material conceptions of space and time, whose ethereal beauty future generations may be able to appreciate more than we do today.
