The Animal Kingdom Project is an initiation between Numeridanse and Akram Khan Company. Inspired from the Company’s production Outwitting the Devil that centres the human connection to the natural world, this project is an opportunity for you to evoke the wild things that we believe, live in you. 

We would like to invite all of you from wherever you are in the world, no matter what age you are, what your physical ability is or level of dance experience, to explore the deepest part of your imagination. We would like you to choreograph your own performance using animals as the starting point. We’re encouraging you to then film your creative genius and send the performance video to Numeridanse. The film will then be displayed online and will create an animal kingdom that connects each of us around the world. 

You can do it on your own, in a duet or in a group. We will guide you through all that you need to know with the tutorial videos. 

In a world where people are connecting through digital devices more and more, it feels like the perfect time to invent and invest in new ways of coming together. Join us in this adventure! Create it, film it, share it. With all the videos we receive, we will edit a final dance film that will represent our global community: our shared animal kingdom. 

So, what are the animals that live within you?

GO TO THE PROJECT PAGE TO LEARN MORE AND PARTICIPATE

“I have awakened to a new way of dancing.  And that is to dance my  ideas through the bodies of others, including  older dancers, who carry  their histories and complex emotional  experiences within them. But what  remains unchanged is my passion for  exploring old and new myths in the  context of our times.” – Akram Khan

We are thrilled to be touring our latest Company production Outwitting the Devil.   Stirring classical and contemporary, Akram Khan explores our oldest   rituals in the midst of our ever-changing planet. He brings together a   superb ensemble of six international artists sharing great differences   in their practice: Ching-Ying Chien, Jasper Narvaez, Dominique Petit,  James Vu Anh Pham, Mythili Prakash and Sam Asa Pratt.

Inspired by the newly discovered fragment of the Babylonian Epic of   Gilgamesh, one of the world’s earliest surviving great works of   literature, Akram’s new work is a concentrated epic about ritual and   remembering. In a landscape of broken tablets and fallen idols, its six   characters trade their remaining wealth and stories, seeking to make   whole the fragments of ancient knowledge lost and forgotten over time.

To weave the narrative and design of this new piece, Akram has  invited his close collaborators: dramaturg Ruth Little, composer  Vincenzo Lamagna, rehearsal director Mavin Khoo, costume designer Kimie  Nakano, and writer Jordan Tannahill – joined by lighting designer Aideen  Malone and visual designer Tom Scutt. Outwitting the Devil invites us all to the table where life, death and our half-remembered myths are the bread we break together.

Source: Akram Khan Company

More information: akramkhancompany.net

Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated  and respected dance artists of today. In just over 19 years he has  created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in  the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of  imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.

As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to  world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous  collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette  Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi  Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band  Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley  and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin  Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.

Khan’s work is recognised as being profoundly moving, in which his  intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic.  Described by the Financial Times as an artist “who speaks tremendously  of tremendous things”, a highlight of his career was the creation of a  section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was  received with unanimous acclaim.

As a choreographer, Khan has developed a close collaboration with  English National Ballet and its Artistic Director Tamara Rojo. He  created the short piece Dust, part of the Lest We Forget programme, which led to an invitation to create his own critically acclaimed version of the iconic romantic ballet Giselle.

Khan has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career  including the Laurence Olivier Award, the Bessie Award (New York Dance  and Performance Award), the prestigious ISPA (International Society for  the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele  Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award at the Edinburgh International  Festival, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and eight Critics’ Circle  National Dance Awards. Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance in  2005. He is also an Honorary Graduate of University of London as well as  Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, and an Honorary Fellow of  Trinity Laban.

Khan is an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London and Curve, Leicester.

Source: Akram Khan Company

More information: akramkhancompany.net

A graduate of the 2005 promotion from the Institute of Audiovisual Communication Trades (IMCA) in Avignon, Maxime Dos lives and works in Grenoble as a director, cameraman, editor and graphic designer.
Since 2010, he has been responsible for audiovisual communication for the contemporary company of Akram Khan (London): trailer, documentary, recording, webdoc, and develops a universe specific to each creation, in particular thanks to his skills in dressing and motion design.
He also works with the contemporary dance company Jean-Claude Gallotta for whom he has made numerous recordings of dance performances, as well as teasers and concepts of video scenograph.

Source: https://cinedia.fr/maxime-dos/