Artistic Director & Choreographer: Akram Khan
Dramaturg: Ruth Little
Lighting Designer: Aideen Malone
Visual Designer: Tom Scutt
Original Music Score & Sound Designer: Vincenzo Lamagna
Costume Designer: Kimie Nakano
Writer: Jordan Tannahill
Creative Associate & Coach: Mavin Khoo
Rehearsal Directors: Mavin Khoo, Azusa Seyama or Angela Towler
Performed by Pallavi Anand, Luke Jessop, Jasper Narvaez, Louis T. Partridge, Elpida Skourou, François Testor
Co-produced by Théâtre de Namur – Centre Scénique, CENTRAL – Centre Culturel de La Louvière, Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Sadler’s Wells London, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand – scène nationale, COLOURS International Dance Festival 2019 – Stuttgart, Attiki Cultural Society – Athens, Greece
Supported by Arts Council England
Duration: 70 min. | N-10
Outwitting the Devil draws on ancient narrative, in this case the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh – one of the world’s oldest great works of literature. In this powerful opus, the gods punish a young King Gilgamesh for destroying a legendary cedar forest and killing its guardian Humbaba. They take the life of his beloved friend Enkidu, a wild man he had tamed. Confronted with the truth and sorrow of mortality, Gilgamesh passes into history, to become a fragment among the broken remnants of human culture and memory. Outwitting the Devil is at once a memory and a confession, a puzzle pieced together in the dark that contains the story of who we once were, and may again become.
This performance has been performed on the world's most famous stages such as Sadler‘s Wells (JK), Festival D‘Avignon, Grand Theatre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence (FR) and Jasper Narvaez, who is dancing the piece, is a former dancer of AURA Dance Theatre.
In July 1999 in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, an animated and curiosity-filled conversation took place between the young gifted dancer/choreographer Akram Khan and an ambitious former dancer and just recently graduated arts manager Farooq Chaudhry. That conversation laid the foundation stone for a dynamic collaboration, culminating in the creation of Akram Khan Company one year later.
Inspired by Akram Khan’s early training in the Indian classical dance form kathak, and the hybrid language that organically emerged when Akram’s kathak training encountered contemporary dance in his teens, a vision began to form, fuelled by a desire to learn and create through collaboration with the very best people across all the disciplines in the arts. The rules were simple: take risks, think big and daring, explore the unfamiliar, avoid compromise and tell stories through dance that are compelling and relevant, with artistic integrity.
In just over 21 years Akram Khan Company is now undisputedly one of the foremost innovative dance companies in the world. The programmes range from kathak and modern solos to artist-to-artist collaborations and ensemble productions. The Company has a major international presence and enjoys busy tours that reach out to many cultures and peoples across the globe. Akram Khan has been the recipient of numerous international dance awards and a milestone in the Company’s journey was the creation of a section of the London Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in 2012. Akram Khan Company enjoys artistic association with Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, Curve in Leicester, and other leading venues and festivals around the world.
This event is part of the „Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022“ program