‘He caught what I thought was impossible’: Danny Boyle, Hanif Kureishi and others on the genius of Akram Khan

‘His precision was truly inspiring to watch’

Nitin Sawhneycomposer, collaborated with Khan on multiple projects including Kaash (2002), Zero Degrees (2005) and Vertical Road (2010)

I think I first saw Akram at the Bhavan Center in London when he was about sixteen. He moved like lightning. His speed was incredible, but his precision was also truly inspiring to watch. He approached me in the late 1990s to work on a project called Fix, and after that I continued to work with him on many, many other projects. The tabla player in my band ended up marrying Akram’s sister.

Not only have I written music for him, I’ve been on stage with him, at Confluence in 2009. We were once in the Netherlands for a performance, and Akram ended up on crutches due to an injury, but still found a way to get through it. And was brilliant. He used them to make squiggles and things like that.

He has a very good sense of humor, but is able to express very deep concepts and tries to convey a sense of the struggle for humanity’s meaning through movement.

When I did Vertical Road with him, I had just come down with pneumonia and the only time he was available to meet in my studio was at 1am, so neither of us were in the best of moods. We sat there pissed off about everything and growling at each other, and he said that for the music he just wanted a constant banging for the first five to ten minutes. I said, if I do that, I’ll be torn to shreds! He said: that’s what I want. But then we started talking about it and thinking, how could we make that work? And for me it was the most exciting thing I had done in a long time. This is what a great director does: they have a sense of vision, they take you somewhere you wouldn’t think you’d go.

‘Very relaxed but completely in control’

Hanif Kureishi, author, collaborated with Khan on A God of Small Stories (2003) and Ma (2004)

Akram was quite young when I first met him and I remember meeting his father, who was a bit like my father: he was a proud Asian father of a child who had achieved success in Britain. We worked on A God of Small Tales with a group of older women in their seventies. I said to Akram, what is this about? And Akram is such an intelligent, creative person. I ended up interviewing each of the women and recording their voices as they told stories from their lives, and Akram designed a movement with them. We played the voices over the dancing women, and it was a very beautiful show and incredibly moving. He could make something beautiful from what seemed to me unpromising material.

I’ve worked with a lot of different directors over the years, and some of them are very strict, they want to be adored and they make people feel intimidated. Akram is not like that. I always enjoyed being in the rehearsal room, the dancers loved working with him, he is very relaxed, he doesn’t scare people, but he is in complete control.

What’s special about Akram is that he’s a genius, which means he doesn’t really listen to other people. Or he listens to you, and then does exactly what he wants to do, which is both frustrating and blessed. He has a strong idea of ​​what he wants to do and he does it. It’s a great quality of a true artist.

‘I remember traveling to Brussels with a lifelike rubber copy of Akram’

Antony Gormley, sculptorcollaborated on Zero Degreesa duet for Khan and dancer/choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, for which he made human-sized sculptures

I think I met Akram through Anish Kapoor, who had worked with him on Kaash, which I saw and loved. It must have been about 2003. I was immediately taken aback by the paradoxical feeling of a man who was both calm and vibrant with energy.

We worked together on Zero Degrees in 2005. Akram came to our development days after two hours or more of intense, rhythmic training [Indian classical dance form] kathak footwork on the linoleum kitchen floor at his mother’s house. It was a moving feeling how much his parents, especially his mother, not only nurtured him as a child, but also provided the foundation on which he grew as a dancer.

I still cherish all my memories of the performances. I remember traveling to Brussels with a lifelike rubber copy of Akram. We didn’t buy a seat for him, so we had to put it in the luggage rack. People on the train were suspicious. As soon as we arrived, Akram and Larbi started dancing with this rubber doppelganger and then copying his moves, learning from his awkward falls.

What I took from Akram is that the old is not the enemy of the new, but its foundation. There were moments in many of his pieces when new choreography changes and returns to a lively demonstration of kathak. You could see Akram lost in his ecstatic gyrations. Here were rhythms and energy fields that translated him into a timeless, limitless zone of heart, mind and soul.

‘He’s actually a very good percussionist’

Jocelyn Pook, composer, wrote scores for Khan shows including Desh (2011), Itmoi (2013), Dust (2014) and Jungle Book Reimagined (2022)

The first project I worked on with Akram was Desh. That was a fantastic experience. They started the project by taking the entire creative team to Bangladesh for a few weeks [Desh was an autobiographical work exploring Khan’s Bangladeshi roots]. Without planning it, I ended up doing a lot of field recording in Dhaka, the chaos and noise of the city, the traffic and the thousands of bicycles and children being run over almost constantly. I made a percussive sketch with it and threw it into the mix and it ended up being a central part of the show. It is a very rewarding way of working: you have that freedom and there is implicit trust. It brings out the best in you and gives you so much self-confidence.

Akram is very open, positive and very attentive. And playful too. We worked on Chotto Desh [a children’s version of Desh] then Itmoi and Dust with English National Ballet. With Dust I was having trouble with one of the sections and he remembered a sketch I had done years before that I had completely forgotten about, and he said how this was, mixed with drums, and he came up with a concept that I had never thought of. He’s very musical – he’s actually a very good percussionist.

I think we connect because there is a primal aspect to some of his work, and the same in my music. It’s very grounded and earthy, but there’s also a kind of spiritual aspect to it.

‘I was able to find answers that were true to myself’

Alina Cojocaru, ballerina, danced the title role in Khan’s reboot of Giselle for English National Ballet (2016)

Giselle is a role I deeply connect with and have played many times, so it was fascinating to work with Akram on his version. Physically it was of course completely different [from the original ballet]but what I loved was how he brought to life the soul of Act II and Giselle’s reality as a woman.

I vividly remember rehearsals where he would say what he wanted to achieve, and then we would find it together. Sometimes you have a choreographer who comes in and says, “I want this and this and this,” and you just try to give them what they want, but if it’s an open dialogue, I can go within myself and find answers that were true to myself. You go home and you still think about it, you see everything through Giselle’s lens. It was a complete immersion, emotionally and physically, and in the curiosity of finding something new in something so traditional.

What I like about it is that Akram doesn’t settle. He must find what he is looking for. In the studio he is extremely focused, he sees everything – you can’t hide in a corner. And everything he does takes time. The world moves so fast these days that you want to make new ballets in two weeks, but he is true to his way of working and discovering a deeper meaning for everything he does. That is why his work is so moving and has so many layers and so much power.

‘Akram just seemed like the right person’

Danny Boyle, film director and director from London Opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, where Khan performed accompanied by singer Emeli Sandé. Khan was given a one-word assignment: mortality

What do I admire about Akram? He’s beautiful. He is very much like Brian Eno: very wise, very quiet and modest, and yet they are incredibly sure of what they want to do and where they want to go.

I saw Akram in Desh and it was kind of an introduction to dance. I had just spent a year traveling around South Asia making a film and when I saw it I was amazed that it had captured something that I thought was impossible to capture.

You feel that his work is meaningful, but you can’t explain it, it draws you into it. And that was best expressed in the piece that Akram created for the Olympic opening ceremony. The Olympics require some pretty grand universal statements. Akram seemed like the right person to do it. It was about a feeling, a sensation that you wanted people to linger in and be inspired by.

It was wonderful to see how he developed the piece; the discipline fascinated me. I remember talking about fish and evolution and stuff like that that sounds weird out of context, but in context it made for that absolutely beautiful piece. As a director you create [the ceremony] between all the staff, and you rehearse like crazy, including camera rehearsals, and then in the evening you could almost check into a hotel and watch it from there for all the usefulness you have. But I remember seeing Akram and being very moved by what he had created for us. It was extraordinary to witness.