After ten years, the group of the world-famous British dancer and choreographer of Bangladeshi origin Akram Khan returns to the Czech Republic. This year, he will bring the production The Jungle Book in a different way, which is intended not only for a wide audience, but also for families with children aged 10 and over.
A retelling of Kipling's classic in magical dance theater! In Akram Khan Company's latest dance-theatre production The Jungle Book, which is based on Rudyard Kipling's much-loved story, its creators look at Mowgli's journey through the eyes of a climate refugee. They show a near-future world where a family with children flees their home impoverished by climate change. During the escape, they lose sight of each other. One of the abandoned children ends up in a modern big city, which has since been swallowed up by nature and wild animals roam its streets. Before long, he finds unexpected allies in this strange, modern jungle.
The Jungle Book otherwise boasts not only the most modern animation and visual technologies that transform the stage into a magical world of contemporary myths, but also original music to which ten dancers from different corners of the world dance. It's a beautifully compelling, lifelike story about our innermost need to belong, the need to bond with others. A story about how important it is to live in harmony with and respect the natural world.
British dancer and choreographer of Bangladeshi origin Akram Khan (*1974) is one of the most recognized dance artists of today. In just 23 years, he created a body of work that made a significant contribution to the development of art in Great Britain and abroad. He achieved success thanks to imaginative and audience-accessible productions such as Outwitting the Devil, XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi, DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees. The Financial Times called Akram Khan an artist who "speaks tremendously about tremendous things".
As a choreographer, he established close cooperation with the English National Ballet. He created the short performance Dust which was part of the Lest We Forget programme. His own choreography for the romantic ballet Giselle was critically acclaimed, and he recently prepared the Creature project here. He has collaborated with artists of various genres - film actress Juliette Binoche, ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem, choreographers and dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost, but also with the National Ballet of China. His career included creating part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which was received with unequivocal acclaim. In recent years, Khan has moved into television, specifically documentaries. With Swan Films he has produced three documentaries for Channel 4, the documentary series Why Do We Dance for Sky Arts and an episode of MOVE for Netflix.
Khan has received numerous awards throughout his career including the Laurence Olivier Award, the Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award), the prestigious ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award at the International Festival in Edinburgh, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and nine Critics' Circle National Dance Awards. In 2005, Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance. He became Chancellor of De Montfort University in 2022 and is also an Honorary Graduate of the University of London and Roehampton and De Montfort Universities and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban.
