A. Khan / S. Larbi Cherkaoui / N. Sawhney / A.Gormley

ZERO DEGREES

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15 NOV 8.30 pm

AUDITORIUM CONCILIAZIONE

Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui – much appreciated in past years by the Romaeuropa Festival audience for their shows – are returning, this time together, with “Zero Degrees“, which is expected to be one of the pinnacle events of the 2007 season.
When the two dancers and choreographers met in 1999, they discovered they had a common background: both were born in Europe from Muslim families, growing up astride two different cultures. But if the Londoner Khan has Bangladeshi roots and developed a language inspired by traditional Indian dance, Larbi Cherkaoui, on the other hand, a Belgian of Moroccan origin, grew up in that explosive theatrical workshop that is Alain Platel’s Ballets C. de la B. Dark-skinned, elegant and brawny the former, thin, pale and agitated the latter, Khan and Larbi Cherkaoui have little in common, even physically: their cooperation in “Zero Degrees” is that of two arrows that cross each other in mid-air from opposite directions. Thus their prolonged and fascinating duet unfolds in the quest for opposites: survival and death, aggressiveness and compassion, order and chaos, in a theatre-dance composition that avails itself of the sculptures of Antony Gormley – famous for the “Angel of the North” statue – and of the music of Nitin Sawhney performed live.
In “Zero Degrees“, dance blossoms around a trip Khan made from Bangladesh to India and is developed in short narrations made by the two artists in synchronic unison that produces an often exhilarating result: a quest for cultural roots and an interior path leading to zero degrees.

Akram Khan was born 33 years ago in the suburbs of London into a family from Bangladesh. He is the most acclaimed choreographer of his generation in the United Kingdom. He has been one of the highlights of Romaeuropa Festival for three years, starting from 2002; in 2006 with Sylvie Guillem in “Sacred Monsters“.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, born in Antwerp to a Belgian mother and a Moroccan father, expresses himself with a dance full of vehemence and fury. He is part of that generation of young Flemish and Walloon artists that represents the new wave of Belgian and European choreography. He took part in Romaeuropa Festival in 2003 and 2004.
Nitin Sawhney is considered one of the most influential and versatile contemporary musicians. He is producer, DJ, playwright, composer.

Co presentation in Rome:
Romaeuropa Festival 2007, Accademia Filarmonica Romana and Auditorium Conciliazione
Supported by ACEA

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