Gigenis: The generation of the Earth by Akram Khan

Sadler’s Wells Theatre November 2024

Earlier this year, the British choreographer Akram Khan made a new, one-hour work called Gigenis: The generation of the Earth, inspired both by the Hindu epic Mahabharata and by his desire to display classical Indian dance forms and the experienced artists who specialize in them. “I grew up watching Indian classical dance,” he has said, “being immersed in the music and the traditions. But now there isn’t really a space on the main stage of the international dance circuit for their work to be seen.”

Wearing several hats, as the curator, director, choreographer and cast member (after a break from performing), he involved seven musicians and singers, who line the stage on both sides, and six exceptional dancers of different ages and backgrounds. 

The oldest, Kapila Venu, is a practitioner and teacher of kutiyattam, the ancient Sanskrit drama form of Kerala that employs a vocabulary of more than 600 gestures. Several of the other experts have concentrated on bharatanatyam, derived from the Tamil words bhavam (expression) and natyam (dance), which can be rendered as pure dance, dance that conveys meaning through hand gestures, or dance with dramatic elements. Khan himself trained in kathak, a narrative form that tells stories through arm and upper body gestures and facial expression, with the eyes and foot movements as the principal focus.

My apologies for all this detail if you can already distinguish one form from another. To my surprise, the fact that I can’t unsettled me during the performance. I had no way of recognizing the attributes of each style and no guidance from either the program or the choreography. Evidently Khan was content to exhibit their unique features in a vaguely narrative context.

Blasting me out of my seat at the outset, a roar of amplified drums and bells introduced an atmospheric drama that came and went in a series of emotional confrontations. Venu’s magnetic presence in the stately opening solo established her as all women, Everywoman, even before an offstage voice declared, ”In another time, I was a daughter and then a wife and then a mother.”  

The words set the scene, first for a younger woman’s lighthearted solo that Venu echoed with her own body and then for a romantic duet of floating arms and gentle curves in which the lovers’ pinky fingers forged an intimate link between them. But naturally, their happiness couldn’t last. 

Forewarned by a sudden blackout, we saw a man die and a woman grieve. We saw two men struggle for dominance before one fiercely rejected the other, pushing him away. To the sound of a thudding heartbeat, the disembodied voice asked, “Whose hand is this? Whose anger? Who breathes?”

Cupped fingers curved upward, spread like spikes, passing a crown from character to character as if authority could never settle comfortably in one place. Flexed feet stamped in emphatic syncopation, and an invisible spear pierced its unsuspecting human target. Stretched nearly flat, Venu scribbled on the ground as if recording history.

It’s rare for a performance to dazzle and disappoint simultaneously, as Gigenis does. Its literary source seems incidental: archetypes all, the characters indicate abstract concepts—love, conflict, loss—without inhabiting any dramatic situation. And Khan’s portrayal of the piece as “a reconciliation between past and present” only resonates with those who can appreciate the traditional forms he treasures.

I cannot describe the dancing except as a demonstration of remarkable articulation and fluency, musical sensitivity, rhythmic subtlety. Hands moved as fast as bobbins, frantically spinning a web. Eyes directed our gaze; ribs and hips moved in opposite directions, perfectly balanced.

Astonished, you could admire the dancers’ exquisite delicacy and muscular rigor as you would admire the artifacts in a museum without understanding a single thing about their cultural significance or expressive nuances. But maybe Khan has achieved his purpose simply by letting the public know that such ancient artistry still exists.  

Touring to Paris and then the U.S. until April 19, 2025. Consult https://www.akramkhancompany.net/productions/gigenis/