Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan launch BAM’s Next Wave Festival
by Mary Staub
www.encoremag.com
Juliette Binoche is one of France’s most celebrated actresses. She’s recognized world-wide and has worked with a disparate array of directors including Anthony Minghella, Louis Malle and Michael Haneke. Across the English Channel, Akram Khan, an award-winning British choreographer and dancer, has worked with his own disparate set of artists, including ballerina Sylvie Guillem and pop-singer Kylie Minogue.
Neither of them shies away from unconventional collaborations. But they both broach new waters in a full-evening dance work, In-I, in which they jointly explore the boundless territories of love. In it, Khan dives into emotion with singing and acting, while Binoche explores movement. The result, In-I, which premiered in London in 2008, kicks off the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival September 15–26.
In-I, in many ways, is about risks. Risks in life and risks in love. Both artists dared to delve into new creative territories and got to know their own expressivity anew. Khan, known for choreography that mixes contemporary dance and classical Indian khatak, had to put himself in Binoche’s body, untrained as a dancer, and explore a whole new movement vocabulary which would allow them to seamlessly communicate with one another onstage. Also, he had to take on more overtly emotional stances than he’s accustomed to, and work with words. Binoche, therewhile, had to dance.
In In-I they both bring to life a couple who confront the pains and pleasures—the risks—of love. A high, free-standing wall of shifting colors and moods, part of a set design by the Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor, seems to symbolize a constant divider between self and other.
“How do you dare to love, how do you find the courage to love?” Khan commented in a short video about the piece. And Binoche said: “When two people love each other, there’s a way of reaching yourself more than in any other circumstance because the other one pushes you in places you’ve never been before. The purpose of being in a couple is to meet yourself, to understand yourself.”
It seems appropriate, then, that these two artists should both have explored new expressive terrain for In-I. In this exploration they, too, were pushed to places they’d never been before. “We had to let go of a lot of things,” Binoche commented. “In fact, it created some conflict and some doors were slammed. But we gained a lot of trust.”
Their collaboration sounds not unlike any partnership of love, wherein exploration precedes conflict, precedes understanding, precedes trust.
by Mary Staub
www.encoremag.com
Juliette Binoche is one of France’s most celebrated actresses. She’s recognized world-wide and has worked with a disparate array of directors including Anthony Minghella, Louis Malle and Michael Haneke. Across the English Channel, Akram Khan, an award-winning British choreographer and dancer, has worked with his own disparate set of artists, including ballerina Sylvie Guillem and pop-singer Kylie Minogue.
Neither of them shies away from unconventional collaborations. But they both broach new waters in a full-evening dance work, In-I, in which they jointly explore the boundless territories of love. In it, Khan dives into emotion with singing and acting, while Binoche explores movement. The result, In-I, which premiered in London in 2008, kicks off the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival September 15–26.
In-I, in many ways, is about risks. Risks in life and risks in love. Both artists dared to delve into new creative territories and got to know their own expressivity anew. Khan, known for choreography that mixes contemporary dance and classical Indian khatak, had to put himself in Binoche’s body, untrained as a dancer, and explore a whole new movement vocabulary which would allow them to seamlessly communicate with one another onstage. Also, he had to take on more overtly emotional stances than he’s accustomed to, and work with words. Binoche, therewhile, had to dance.
In In-I they both bring to life a couple who confront the pains and pleasures—the risks—of love. A high, free-standing wall of shifting colors and moods, part of a set design by the Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor, seems to symbolize a constant divider between self and other.
“How do you dare to love, how do you find the courage to love?” Khan commented in a short video about the piece. And Binoche said: “When two people love each other, there’s a way of reaching yourself more than in any other circumstance because the other one pushes you in places you’ve never been before. The purpose of being in a couple is to meet yourself, to understand yourself.”
It seems appropriate, then, that these two artists should both have explored new expressive terrain for In-I. In this exploration they, too, were pushed to places they’d never been before. “We had to let go of a lot of things,” Binoche commented. “In fact, it created some conflict and some doors were slammed. But we gained a lot of trust.”
Their collaboration sounds not unlike any partnership of love, wherein exploration precedes conflict, precedes understanding, precedes trust.
No comments:
Post a Comment