Review-iTMOi-Hong Kong Arts Festival
8-3-14
By: Satoshi Kyo
A commissioned work for the centenary of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring, iTMOi (which stands for In the Mind of Igor) premiered in Grenoble, France in May 2013. Instead of retaining Stravinsky's music or Vaslav Nijinsky's choreographic language from the iconoclastic ballet, choreographer and dancer Akram Khan explored the psyche of how the work came about. Khan gave us a glimpse of Stravinsky's music and dug deep into the aspects of sacrifice, into the very core of a ballet about a chosen woman dancing herself to death. Unlike the original which sparked a riot during its first performance, iTMOi was relatively subdued, but still a compelling work in general.
The houselights were still on when a bellowing roar erupted that made the audience jump. It was a cheap but effective trick that appropriately set what should be expected in this hot-blooded work. The work, as slowly revealed by the ranting figure on stage, was about the Biblical story of God calling Abraham to scarific his son. Whilst composers Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost are not Stravinsky, the jarring juxtaposition of their music that ranged from brutal cacophonies of sounds to saccharin melodies and eerie electronic crackles brought a layer of narrative that accentuated the ironies and cruelties of the theme.
The nebulous narrative possessed characters such as a cold queen with an elaborate crown and hoop skirt; a young girl, at the brink of adolescence; a young man that challenges authority; another young man in hoop skirt that tries to hold on to the past; and a faunish creature. While these characters may not have explicitly communicated their roles, their participation expressed a far deeper and animalistic sensitivity that The Rite of Spring must have been perceived by the original audience. The dance language is undeniably Khan, a fluid and beautiful fusion of Kathak with a myriad of other dance languages both from the East and the West.
iTMOi did not have the clarity and pulse of Khan's own solo show DESH, which the Hong Kong audience enjoyed in 2011. It was however, a powerful and emotionally-charged work that effectively showcased the unique spirit and characteristics of Khan's choreographic style and creativity.
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