Until the Lions

The award-winning British choreographer Akram Khan returns to the Holland Festival with his new production Until the Lions, an original adaptation of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. Khan explores this story to ask questions about the nature of masculinity and femininity. Do the differences between man and woman go deeper than the body?

Are there unnamed impulses driving inner desires and the urge for expression? Is gender an internal calling or merely outward appearance – like an identity card handed out by society. How fixed are these categories? What part does Time, the master sorcerer, play in our perception of these issues?

Until the Lions is based on Karthika Naïr's literary reworking of the Mahabharata. One of the subplots in this classic epic story is told from the perspective of a compelling, yet misunderstood female character. On her wedding day, princess Amba is abducted by Bheeshma, the ruler of a nearby kingdom, who offers her as a bride to his stepbrother. Amba is disowned by her family, her fiancé and her people – because she has been captured by another man. Her abductor also refuses to restore her honour. She is ruined. Rejected by everyone, Amba calls for the help of the gods. The god Shiva promises she will reincarnate as a mighty male warrior, so she can have her revenge on Bheeshma. Amba commits suicide and reincarnates as a man – with fatal consequences.

Until the Lions features Khan himself performing on stage, alongside Ching Ying Chien, Christine Joy Ritter and four musicians. Together, they mix contemporary dance with the traditional, narrative dance form of kathak. The performance shows what happens when society's rules governing the lives of men and women no longer protect but destroy. What can a woman do when she has lost possession and control over her own body, equated with her virtue. To what lengths can she go to regain control over her life, to gain justice? When the quest for justice swerves towards revenge, what price would the body have to pay, and what price would humanity have to pay? There's a saying in African Ugbo culture: 'Until the lions have their own historians, the hunter will always have the best part of the story.' Khan once again collaborates with some of the original team from his acclaimed solo DESH (2012), including writer Karthika Naïr, visual designer Tim Yip, lighting designer Michael Hulls and dramaturge Ruth Little. Supported by composer Beautiful Noise (Vincenzo Lamagna) the ensemble aim to fulfil the role of the historian for one of the heroines in the Mahabharata, whose story still speaks to us and whose tragedy still resounds in many parts of our world today.

Until the Lions goes back to Khan's early days as a performer, when he was a thirteen year-old dancer performing one of his first roles in Peter Brook's seminal staging of TheMahabharata with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Khan travelled the world with this company between 1987 and 1989. The epic has remained an inspiration to him ever since. He highlighted various of the story's characters in his productions Ronin (2003), ThirdDialogue (2005) and Gnosis (2010). Khan: 'In our society we seem to be in thrall to 'intelligence' and to neglect wisdom, and I want to return to the knowledge tradition of the Mahabharata, using my transitional body and the conversation it might be having between its intelligence and its wisdom.'