Kaash at Sadlers Wells London wows the audience
Kaash – the unexpected, the unexplainable, the “thinking and dancing outside the box….”
Breaking new ground is something that everyone who is an artist should feel it is their task to do. “Kaash” takes the audience on a ride which is not altogether comfortable and I believe it is studiously intended to express pain and discord as well as integration, imagination and an intellectual rollercoaster of moody dancing with a touch or two of romance. Using mainly movement but also music to the point that the whole of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre vibrated and “voices” broadcast, sometimes making a beautiful rhyming sense in Hindi and sometimes in a cocophony of half- understood words including “if only I had bought two instead of one”…..Kaash, the men in a swirling skirt/robe from the waist down and leggings – otherwise naked, and the women with a slightly more covered- up but nevertheless black outfit, covers a myriad of positions and poses including using the wrists and hands in hitherto unseen new adventures into the world of dance on stage displaying the suppleness and elasticity of the dancers’ bodies. One of the female dancers achieved an uncountable amount of ballet-like twirls this way and that all the time of course keeping her balance perfectly, with a male dancer joining her for some of it.
The backdrop to the dancing was a huge Rothko-style artwork which changed colour according to the lighting and the hugely loud music. This arthouse technique of even integrating a suggestion of the transiency of modern art which is worth a fortune and yet somehow lacking in romance or depth made the performance all the more eyepopping and emotional. The team received several standing ovations when the audience realised the show had concluded.
Akram Khan who owns the dance company launched it sixteen years ago and was already a solo performer-choreographer of some renown. He trained from the age of 7 in the classical North Indian dance form of Kathak and in contemporary dance in the UK and at Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s PARTS school in Brussels. Kaash was first performed in 2002 and Khan worked with composer Nitin Sawhney and sculptor Anish Kapoor to perfect the work.
The dancers for this production are Kristina Alleyne, (who originally trained as an athlete) Sade Alleyne, (who also originally trained as an athlete) Sarah Cerneaux,(trained mainly in France), Sung Hoon Kim, (originally from South Korea with extensive dance training there and in Europe ) and Nicola Monaco (did some of his extensive training in his native Italy before more training in the UK). For more information about this eclectic and mesmerising troupe of five in “Kaash” please access the website as well as looking at Sadlers Wells for your chance to be a witness to this unusual and inspirational work. Enjoy.
Penny Nair Price