transition | Bahok

Co-produced by the Liverpool Culture Company for Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 with Merseyside Dance Initiative and Akram Khan Company.

Bahok is the long awaited new group choreography by Akram Khan. After the more intimate duets with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Zero Degrees) and Sylvie Guillem (Sacred Monsters), Akram Khan again joins forces with Mercury Award winning composer and producer Nitin Sawney, and has brought together a new company of nine dancers.

A collaboration with China’s classical ballet flagship company, The National Ballet of China, the dancers come from different cultures, traditions and dance backgrounds: Chinese, Korean, Indian, South-African and Spanish. As such they resemble a present day version of the tale of Babel. Being a community that wants to create together a utopian project but speaking both with their bodies and tongues different languages. They meet in one of this globalised world’s transit zones and try to communicate, to share ‘the things they carry with them’ : their experiences, their memories of their original homes, the dreams and aspirations that made them move. They are carriers.They are bahok.

Co-producers and sponsors: British Council, Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, Birmingham Dance Exchange, Theatre de La Ville, Paris , Tanzhaus NRW Dusseldorf, National Arts Center, Ottawa, Liverpool Culture Company with Merseyside Dance Initiative. Bahok is part of LEAP - Merseyside Dance Initiative's annual contemporary dance festival.