« For nomads, home is not an address, home is what they carry with them. » (John Berger. Hold everything dear.)We are all travelers. We are all voyagers. Born into this world, embodied, we can only move forwards. But we are also all carriers. We are all bahok. We carry with us our genetic and cultural inheritance, our experiences, our dreams and aspirations.
All stories are about the journey of our body through life: its birth and origin, the search and quest for its identity, its transformation, its death. All stories are both unique and universal. Regardless of our cultural background our stories resemble each other and reveal the same underlying themes. « Home is where one starts from » (T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets.)
Asked about memories of home, almost all of us return to the original home, ourchildhood home: its smells, its tissues, its ornaments, our parents’ clothes, its courtyards, its trees, its rains, its rivers... For some of us these memories of the original home got lost. For others they are violent. The childhood home being demolished. Childhood being demolished.
In ‘bahok’, the new company piece of Akram Khan, he brings together eight dancers from very diverse, cultural backgrounds: Chinese, Korean, Indian, Slovakian, South- African, and Spanish. In one of this globalised world’s transit zones they come together. They try to communicate, to exchange their stories, their memories of home. «The dancers are the writers of the show. They are the ones who bring the source material. We search for the little stories that they bring with them and exploring these short stories of each individual, we find a bigger story. That’s what fascinates me, to explore these personal stories of these individuals on stage, in order to discover and reveal a more universal one. » (Akram Khan)
In his exploration Akram Khan is accompanied by composer Nitin Sawhney who put music to the stories, these bodies on stage carry with them. The National Ballet of China and the Akram Khan Company invite you to join them on their journey.
Guy Cools, Dramaturge - London-Beijing: December-January 2007/2008
texto retirado daqui
