Kaash – Akram Kahn
FALL opens with Akram Khan’s Kaash, which created an absolute sensation at its world premiere in 2002 and made the British-Bengali choreographer famous virtually overnight. As a spectator you feel as if stepping into a story as Khan leads you into his special cosmos, in a swirling mix of Indian Kathak dance and contemporary dance. The dancers use their feet as percussion instruments while their arms cut razor-sharp through the air. Turner Prize winner Anish Kapoor created the impressive stage design and Nitin Sawhney (who has written songs for many well-known pop stars) composed the driving Indian music. Besides Introdans and Khan’s own group, there are only two other companies worldwide with permission to perform this work.  

What the press said about Kaash:
‘An explosion of movement and sound. The dancers are outstanding. What an intriguing language and fantastic body control!’ – de Volkskrant
‘Kaash stands as a striking work of pure dance that takes the spectator on a journey from the vast echo of outer space down into the red-hot centre of the Earth’ – The Times 

Pure – Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
A lyrical, virtuoso and moving duet, full of unusual lifts – that’s how one can best describe Pure by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. In this intimate choreography Cherkaoui addresses the themes of purity and purification. What remains if you let go of all human desires? The female dancer in the duet paints herself with Japanese characters and so creates something new, while on the other hand she also destroys the pure. Her partner lovingly rubs off the painted characters, as if he wants to remove the marks that life has left on her. But despite all his tenderness, he can’t reverse the situation. 

What the press said about Pure:
‘A very precious pearl’ – Dagblad van het Noorden
‘Pure is a highlight of intimacy (..) a very assured duet, in which the dancers handle each other like porcelain’ – ConcertNews.be 

Fall – Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
FALL closes with the work of the same name by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. This is the seventh time that Introdans – one of the most important treasurers of Cherkaoui’s oeuvre – is adding a choreography by the Flemish-Moroccan grandmaster to its repertoire. Fall refers both to the colour-shifting and falling leaves of autumn and to the continual battle of the (dancer’s) body with gravity. Inspired by both these themes, and also by the simplicity and meditative calm of Arvo Pärt’s music, Cherkaoui developed a hallucinatory cycle of falling and returning to one’s feet, as a constant flow of movements that never seems to come to an end. 

What the press said about Fall:
‘A rich and sensual choreography, complex and interesting. The bodies move from high to low like leaves on the breath of the wind’ – Klassiek-centraal.be
‘The dancers don’t push solo moments to create ‘high point’: they remain part of an unpredictable flow of movements set to the seductive, meditative music of Pärt (..) The choreography floods over you like a sweet reverie’ – Pzazz