Award Winning Akram Khan Returns to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen With New Production CREATURE

Following the success of Kaash and Giselle, award winning choreographer Akram Khan is returning to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen with a new full-length production, Creature. Once again he is working with composer Vincenzo Lamagna and set designer Tim Yip, the team behind Giselle. In this new ballet, Khan holds up a mirror to us about the hubris of humanity.

In Creature, humans prepare to leave the devastated earth. In a mysterious bunker, Creature must undergo all kinds of experiments to see how humans might adapt to the conditions on another planet. The only person Creature has an emotional connection with is Marie. He falls in love with her, but is that love mutual?

Creature is not an adaptation of a ballet classic. Nevertheless, there are recognisable elements and characters in the story from Woyzeck, such as Marie, but also the Major and the Doctor who oversee the experiments, as George Büchner's groundbreaking theatre text served as the main source of inspiration.

For Akram Khan, Creature symbolises everyone who is powerless in times when presidents carelessly shake off all democratic controls and when entrepreneurs give up on the future of the earth by already looking for other planets to colonise and perhaps again destroy. Creature therefore offers a warning to humans who, according to Khan, fly too close to the sun.

Khan once again takes us along in his dance language of powerful ensembles and deeply-felt expressive solos and duets in which the boundaries between classical and contemporary blur. The role of Creature is an emotional and technical feat for the dancer, because the character moves onstage for almost the entire performance. Jeffrey Cirio, who created the role in London, deservedly received a National Dance Award for Best Male Classical Performance for it. Here, the role is played alternately by Philipe Lens and Claudio Cangialosi.

The performances in Antwerp will be accompanied by the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Sutherland.

Just like Giselle, Creature will again be a dark but overwhelming visual and emotional experience that will leave no one unaffected.

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