Akram Khan, GIGENIS, The Generation of the Earth Review ★★★★★

A work of rare beauty with stunning visuals, limpid narrative, potent music and enthralling dancing, Akram Khan’s GIGENIS: The Generation of the Earth held a packed Sadler’s Wells rapt for 60 minutes on its UK premiere.

This is British-born Akram Khan’s fully immersive return to his roots in the classical dance of India, and also his return to the stage in a smaller but significant role which attests to his quality as a skilled, charismatic dancer.

Khan assembled a small ensemble of six dancers besides himself, all eminent exponents of South Asian dance strands, primarily kathak and barathanatyam, and seven musicians to create a tight-knit work inspired by the Indian epic, The Mahabharata.

In simple terms, it’s the story of a war widow whose two sons stand for opposites: one, danced by Khan’s regular collaborator Mavin Khoo, represents goodness and harmony, the other, danced by Akram Khan himself, is a power-hungry bringer of chaos.

Integral to the piece is Zeynep Kepekli’s stunning lighting design, a wonder of subtlety and effectiveness.

An almightily crash signals the beginning, repeating at intervals as the house lights go down and for a moment total darkness reigns. Slowly the stage becomes visible, twilit with only a shaft of light from above illuminating two immobile figures that face each other on a low platform upstage. It’s a breathtaking moment.

The seven dancers in their soft pastel coloured traditional costumes (designer Peggy Housset) form a line that slowly walks downstage - this formation will repeat at the end of the piece - and then the narrative begins. A woman, Kapila Venu, kneels on the ground while a whispered voiceover is heard: ‘in other times I was a daughter, then I was a wife, then a mother.’

She acts like a story-teller and witness: the three stages of her life are performed by different dancers. The young woman, Sirikalyani Adkoli, has a carefree solo; legs earthbound in deep plié, her arms and hands form graceful shapes in front of her, or above her head, and she turns and moves with dazzling grace, responding to the insistent rhythms and vocalisations of the music.

A second female dancer, Vijan Vasudevan, represents the next stage, the wife; she has a prolonged, deeply moving duet with Renjith Babu, their gestures filled with soft, yearning love.

Finally we’re left with the Mother, danced by Mythili Prakash, the two feuding sons, and the struggle for the crown that represents unconstrained power. A fierce, thrilling duet between Khoo and Khan ends in the death of the Khan character; harmony is restored.

The individual parts are interspersed with lively ensemble numbers, the structure of the piece creating a perfect balance between slower, narrative moments and vibrant rhythmic dancing, all moved along by music of extraordinary power and variety.

In a programme note Khan argues this return to his roots answers a collective need to reconnect with Mother Earth and with ancient myth, something he feels humanity as whole has lost touch with. That underlying meaning is not immediately apparent, but that does not detract from the power and sheer beauty of this work.