Akram Khan’s dance polemic against the human activities that have driven, and continue to drive climate change, premiered like so many of his previous works, at the Curve Theatre in Leicester last April prior to a UK tour. It has now embarked upon a major European tour that takes in some 20 cities in several countries, including return visits to the UK at Sadler’s Wells (April), the Lowry (May) and the Marlowe in Canterbury (June). Khan’s prediction of environmental catastrophe with rising sea levels covering most of the planet is told through the altered imagery and gender of familiar characters from Rudyard Kipling’s tales of The Jungle Book.
Here, Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and company inhabit an urban jungle; the animals having escaped from the captivity of zoos, laboratories and circuses to occupy areas that humans have evacuated to move to higher ground. Mowgli is a young girl separated from her family and saved from drowning by whales. As in Kipling’s narrative, she is initially adopted by wolves; befriended by Baloo, formerly a captive dancing bear and Bagheera, a female panther. Mowgli is kidnapped by the cunning bandar-log (escaped laboratory monkeys) and pressured to give up the human secret of fire. There is the sinister underlying threat of a random human hunter, which becomes a reality when Chil, the kite, is killed.
A complex narrative is delivered in several ways. Adam Smith and Nick Hillel of YeastCulture, who collaborated with Khan to great effect on DESH, have created digital animation that both posted flashbacks to the environmental disaster alongside Mowgli’s back story with her mother and her escape from drowning and also illustrated many of the animal kingdom. Hathi and his elephants are impressive line drawings and the bandar-log, ironically, are presented in a parliamentary-style setting, mindlessly applauding anything their leader says! There is also a significant amount of recorded voiceover text (by Tariq Jordan) that helps to tell the story.
However, added to dance, music and scenography all of this seemed a tad too busy. The digital projections required the onstage action to take place behind a scrim, which not even Michael Hulls’ lighting skills could save from a general gloom. The need for Spanish translations (not necessarily a great idea in a theatre where Catalan is the first language) projected onto the screen just added to the visual clutter. The onscreen translations and surtitles were also very selective with much of the English text not translated at all. This, I know, caused confusion amongst some of the local audience.
The best of the action by far came in Khan’s imaginative choreography. The half-dozen or so group dances were very effective reference points in the narrative and the ten dancers were always superbly coordinated. The individual motifs given to each character were also impressive. As Baloo, Tom Davis-Dunn gave an outstanding impression of a dancing bear, with his rolling gait and peculiar, chest-out, head-back stance. Similarly, Holly Vallis, performing on all-fours, brought stealth and an image of long, slender, extended limbs to their vivid portrayal of the panther, Bagheera. Max Revell, winner of 2019 BBC Young Dancer, infused the lead bandar-log with an extraordinary movement quality invested with his diverse hip-hop skills. Pui Yung Shum gave contrasting auras of vulnerability, determination and strength to the young character of Mowgli.
The one character well-remembered from Kipling, not only because of George Sanders’ memorable vocal performance in the Disney Film, omitted from this reimagining was the Bengal tiger, and Akram’s namesake, Shere Khan. Thomasin Gülgeç and Lucia Chocarro gave striking portrayals as the wolves, Rama and Raksha, supported by a menacing wolf pack of Fukiko Takase, Harry Theadora Foster and Luke Watson. Matthew Sandiford gave a commanding performance as Akela, president of the animals’ council. Frankly, I felt that the choreography as performed by these excellent dancers was enough to carry the story without such excessive use of text and animation.
Set against the complexities of the projected imagery, the stage design (by Miriam Buether) was refreshingly simple although the portrayal of Kaa, the giant snake, as a disconnected series of cardboard boxes held aloft by performers, seemed strikingly amateurish. I’m guessing that the cardboard was some kind of sustainability reference but as a theatrical device it seemed overly simplistic. By contrast, Jocelyn Pook’s eclectic, evocative score was fascinating albeit all-too-often interrupted.
There have been and no doubt will continue to be, many dance works with messages about climate change and biodiversity. And despite my desire to reach for the editing shears, Khan and his team are to be congratulated on producing a scathing and incisive work of dance theatre, sending out their blunt but powerful message through these familiar characters reimagined in an alien Waterworld.
