Zero Degrees

Published Monday 18 July 2005 at 13:05 by Katie Phillips

We know that each of the artists involved in the world premiere of this grand scale collaboration are all great in their own fields. But the prospect of seeing whether they can get together and pull off a successful performance has heralded a great deal of excitement.

The piece is based on Akram Khan’s story of a train ride in India. Khan and co-performer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui use entangled memories, images, meditations and speech to tell a pretty grim story of dead bodies, loss of identity, fear, compassion and the limits and impositions of humanity.

The narrative is conversational and in unison, serious in content but also prompting a few laughs. Their shared dialogue, fast and exact, slips easily into a similarly gelled movement duet, the pair’s collaboration meshing in a spectacularly new and unusual style.

The live musicians perform percussive strings with Faheem Mazhar’s eerie classical Indian vocal dominating the sound.

Opposition and balance, threat and submission, similarities and differences abound as Khan and Cherkaoui duet symmetrically, dancing together in mirror image, allowing the audience to glimpse their zero degrees - the transitional point between life and death.

Using Gormley’s life size sculptures of themselves to manipulate, comfort, beat, drag and carry, they manage to project a whole other world on to the sparse, monochrome set of dull greys and stark whites.

Khan dances with a strength, power and ruthlessness that is quite extraordinary - his vitality and energy are boundless. Cherkaoui demonstrates his flexibility as he literally ties himself in knots and stands on his head in a manner both entertaining and surreal.

The piece is honest, exquisite and intimate - touching in its closeness and unity. It is narrated with impeccable timing, danced exquisitely and with character.