Why planet shouldn’t desire ‘man’s red fire’
Choreographer Akram Khan tells MARTIN BALLARD about reinventing The Jungle Book, with Mowgli’s journey seen through the eyes of a climate refugee
THE Jungle Book started as a collection of stories, not as one book. Were you aware of the tales?
No, I wasn’t really. It was only when, alongside my collaborators, I delved deeper for my own production that I started to realise it’s a much bigger book. Disney took one part of it – Mowgli – but The Jungle Book is steeped in lots of different narratives. Kipling did publicly say that it was taken from a lot of the traditional myths from India.
Why did you want to present Jungle Book: Reimagined right now?
Well, I feel I’ve been through a phase of making very dark work. My daughter, who’s eight, said, “Enough’s enough, Papa. Every piece of work that you make is so dark”. So I thought I actually want to make work for young people, children and adults alike, and I wanted to make something that did not neglect what’s happening in the world today. The Jungle Book felt very relevant, especially after reading Amitav Ghosh’s book on climate change. That really inspired me to
do something with my work.
And this is a piece you’re going to take around the world because it carries an important message, doesn’t it? It’s about our relationship with the planet, our belonging, and how we interact with others.
I feel like the lesson in this work is about listening. We’ve lost the art and the skill of listening. I mean listening to our instinct. We trust technology more. True listening happens when you stop waiting to speak.
I feel ancient tribes – those that still exist in the Amazon and Africa – are so connected to the earth, they are so connected to nature and they are constantly aware. They were aware of climate change before our scientists told us, because they are living within nature.
We are dependent on other things, like technology. If we want to find our way through somewhere, we go to Google Maps, but what about our human instincts? Really the piece is about our lack of listening but also the sadness of not being able to listen and how important it is to be able to listen to the earth. It’s one of our biggest mistakes. Climate change is here and we were aware of it a long time ago.
Is that why perhaps the arts, dance in particular, is more important than ever now? A time when people will sit in an auditorium and listen, take it all in and go away and have a conversation with others about it afterwards?
I think it’s the last ritual left for humankind. The last ritual used to be eating with family and friends. But now when I eat with my family, everyone’s on an iPad or iPhone. The moment we buy the ticket is a contract to say, ‘We’re going to leave everything behind for those two hours and we’re going to give you our attention’.
I think theatre is so important for two reasons. There’s one thing about being able to focus on something without the noise that surrounds us all the time. The second thing about theatre is the sense of gathering people. When I did the Olympic Games opening ceremony in 2012, just before our piece started, everything quietened down when the piece before us ended.
And the silence of 70,000 people was so loud and so powerful. I was in awe of it. There is this real sense of power when we collectively listen rather than individually that still happens in theatre which is beautiful.
This is your first production as a director. How does that feel?
It doesn’t feel any different really. I like to think my work is more cinematic, so I have always felt like a director for each of my works. The only difference is that with this production we have a script and that’s something new for me – I’ve never started with a script. It’s exciting and I’m learning and discovering new things, but as a director I don’t feel like my role has changed as such.
Akram Khan’s Jungle Book: Reimagined, featuring an original score, ten international dancers and state-of-the-art animation and visuals, is at Birmingham Hippodrome on April 29 and 30.