Jungle Book Reimagined. Akram Khan Company presented by Canberra Theatre Centre, February 2-3, 2024.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 2
Director/Choreographer: Akram Khan
Creative Associate/Coach: Mavin Khoo
Dramaturgical Advisor: Sharon Clark
Composer: Jocelyn Pook; Sound Designer: Gareth Fry; Lighting Designer: Michael Hulls;
Visual Stage Designer: Miriam Buether
Art Direction and Director of Animation: Adam Smith (YeastCulture)
Producer/Director of Video Design: Nick Hillel (YeastCulture)
Rotoscope Artists/Animators: Naaman Azhari, Natasza Cetner, Edson R Bazzarin
Rehearsal Director: Nicky Henshall, Andrew Pan, Angela Towler
Dancers: Maya Balam Meyong, Tom Davis-Dunn, Hector Ferrer, Harry Theadora Foster, Filippo Franzese, Bianca Mikahil, Max Revell, Matthew Sandiford, Elpida Skourou, Holly Vallis, Jan Mikaela Villanueva, and Lani Yamanaka
When theatre is presented as a grandstanding significant work, I must consider if the result achieves a depth of artistic sincerity or is not much more than a self-indulgent display.
The dancers in this production of Jungle Book Reimagined must be praised for their performance of a demanding choreography and presentation of characters, but the show as a whole is a confusing collection of bits and pieces supposedly derived from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
The book publishers write “First published by Macmillan in 1894, The Jungle Book is the classic collection of animal tales that shows Rudyard Kipling's writing for children at its best. The short stories and poems include the tale of Mowgli, a boy raised by a pack of wolves in the Indian jungle. We meet the tiger Shere Khan, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo, the 'sleepy brown bear', and the python, Kaa. Other famous stories include the tale of the fearless mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that of elephant-handler Toomai of the Elephants.”
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/rudyard-kipling/the-jungle-book/9781509805594
They also note it is “A collection of Rudyard Kipling's animal stories, wonderfully told and interweaving moral lessons with classic tales.”
Kipling’s story is, of course, entire fantasy – a British Empire story probably vaguely influenced by the story of Romulus described on the History Channel: “Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river's banks in 753 B.C. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him.”
I’m guessing that’s how the pack of wolves got into the Indian jungle. As jungleroots.com explains: “Indian Wolf - They are less territorial than other wolf species and rarely howl. Unlike Mowgli's wolf family in The Jungle Book, they usually avoid the jungles and stick to the more open areas like grasslands.”
So
what is the purpose of Akram Khan ‘reimagining’ Kipling’s obviously
romanticised picture of their Empire for British children in 1894 – with
pictures drawn by Kipling’s father in so-called Indian style. The
Canberra Theatre Centre publicises the show, saying “Following seasons
throughout the world including Sadlers Wells (London), The Lincoln
Centre (New York), Canadian Stage (Toronto) and Theatre de la Ville
(Paris) we are thrilled to present this gripping, exquisitely crafted
and timely work to you here in Canberra…. It is exciting that this
week, the Akram Khan Company will present a masterclass for local dance
practitioners.” (Dan Clarke, Head of Programming).
I can’t,
therefore, dismiss this show lightly. Yet, the first comment I
overheard at interval, was ‘rather boring’. That, I’m sure, was not
about the dancers’ technical skills or the clever individual
characterisations, some quite humorous; but too often group work in the
style seen in the program cover (above) was repeated time and time again
for no apparent purpose, and with no development of the story. In Act
2, the story development gathered some pace – but I never felt properly
engaged with the central character – the girl, named by the animals as
Mowgli, and given the impossible task of proving her superiority among
animals as a human – seemingly perhaps the last one left on earth, after
defeating the hunter.
I can’t deny Akram Khan’s genuine
intentions about the theme of how “climate change is and will continue
to affect all living creatures on this beautiful planet” and how “we are
now living in unprecedented and uncertain times, not only for our
species but for all species on this planet. And the root cause of this
conumdrum is because we have forgotten our connection to our home, our
planet. We all inhabit it, and we all build on it, but we have
forgotten to return our respect for it.” And about “the lessons of
commonality between species, the binding interdependence between humans,
animals and nature, and finally, a sense of family and our need to
belong.”
But there is a terrible irony in the design of Jungle Book Reimagined.
The most effective aspects, theatrically, are in the sound effects and
the original approach to visuals. Since COVID-19 lockdown, Khan writes,
“I have come to appreciate technology [which] allowed me to stay
connected with my loved ones, my artistic team and the wider world.
Without the use of technology, I would have felt truly alone.”
The
irony is that the living performances of the dancers take place behind
screens (though transparent) where remarkable moving images of all sorts
from elephants, giraffes, birds and even mice take all our attention,
while the choreography, often in stylised representation of the animals,
never takes us fully into feeling a sense of human or animal family.
In
the end, the final image of the drama is defeatist. Despite the
dancing in unison seen in the first program image above, the program
also shows the image below, representing what we saw full size on the
backdrop screen ending the performance.
The
image of Mowgli, at the edge of an endless sea, becomes a video of her
climbing back on a raft of human-made metal drums or boxes, like the one
that saved her from the climate-change induced floods at the beginning
of the show. As she begins to float to nowhere towards a blank horizon,
the show ends.
Mowgli, the superior human, has failed to fulfil
the hopes of the animals. She may have used human technology to kill
the hunter, and like Prospero who breaks his magic wand in The Tempest, she destroys the gun.
But, if human technology saves the theatrical show, it shows us Mowgli left truly alone.
And
it left me feeling the technology had taken precedence over the living
dancers. Yet Akram Khan writes “We must not forget that most often,
great storytelling can be told by the simplest of tools. Our bodies,
our voices, and our conviction in that story.”
I agree – but
the show became a display of complex technology without the warmth of
humanity that dance is really all about. What is the moral lesson here?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
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