Current Issue #488

Adelaide Festival to Host Akram Khan's Final Solo Performance, XENOS

Adelaide Festival to Host Akram Khan's Final Solo Performance, XENOS

In a major coup for Australian dance fans, the legendary Akram Khan will perform his full-length solo piece XENOS at the 2018 Adelaide Festival.

XENOS will be exclusively performed three times in the Adelaide Festival while Khan is in Australia. The piece will make its debut in Athens in February, and also tour to Europe, North America and Hong Kong after its Festival season.

“It is an absolute thrill to present XENOS in our 2018 program,” said the Festival’s artistic directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield in a release. “Akram is one of the world’s most captivating male dancers, and this venture is all the more poetic as it will be the last time audiences will be able to see him perform solo.”

The final solo show from Khan will explore the Greek myth of Prometheus from the perspective of an Indian soldier fighting for the British Empire in WWI. It’s title, XENOS, also hails from Greek, meaning ‘stranger’ or ‘alien’. The piece will see Khan take centre stage supported by a strong creative team and five musicians. Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme commemorating the end of WW1 and Adelaide Festival, XENOS is expected to be a moving and timely performance.

Khan’s return to the Festival also marks a serendipitous bookend to the famed dancer’s career. Next year’s festival will mark 30 years to the month that a 13 year old Khan performed in Peter Brook’s The Mahabarata in the 1988 Adelaide Festival.

This year’s OzAsia Festival also saw Until the Lions by Akram Khan performed for Adelaide audiences, though Khan did not take part in the performance.

XENOS
Friday, March 16 until Sunday March 18
Her Majesty’s Theatre
adelaidefestival.com.au

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