In Conversation with Akram Khan and Kapila Venu

Akram Khan (he/him) is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists today. In over 23 years, he has created a body of work that has significantly contributed to the arts in the United Kingdom and internationally. His reputation is built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as Jungle Book Reimagined, Outwitting the Devil, XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis, and zero degrees.

As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook, and Ben Frost.

Khan’s work is recognised as rofoundly moving, with his intelligently crafted storytelling being both effortlessly intimate and epic. Described by the Financial Times as an artist “who speaks tremendously of tremendous things”, a highlight of his career was creating a section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was received with unanimous acclaim.

As a choreographer, Khan has developed a close collaboration with English National Ballet. He created the short piece Dust, part of the Lest We Forget programme, which led to an invitation to create his own critically acclaimed version of the iconic romantic ballet Giselle. Creature is Khan’s latest work for English National Ballet.

Khan has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career including two Laurence Olivier Awards, the Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award), the prestigious ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award at the Edinburgh International Festival, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and nine Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005. In 2022, he was announced as the new Chancellor of De Montfort University, and he is also an Honorary Graduate of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, University of London as well as Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban.

Khan is an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London as well as Curve.

Kapila Venu is a practitioner of kutiyattam, one of the oldest living theatre traditions in the world, from Kerala, India. She is a disciple of the legendary Kutiyattam maestro Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar and the renowned exponents Guru G Venu and Guru Usha Nangiar. She is also a practitioner of Mohiniyattam dance, which she learned from her mother Guru Nirmala Paniker. For more than two decades, she has travelled the world performing, teaching and giving workshops on kutiyattam. She has studied with renowned Japanese avant-garde dancer Min Tanaka and has performed in two of his choreographies: Rite of the Forest (2005) and Thottangal (2007).

She has also collaborated with internationally recognised artists and scholars such as Dr Eberhard Fischer, Peter Oskarson and Wally Cardona. She is a guest lecturer at the National School of Drama in New Delhi and a Master Teacher at the Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore. A film on the life and work of Kapila Venu, titled Kapila, directed by Sanju Surendran, won the National Award for Best Cultural Film at the 62nd National Film Awards of the Government of India in 2014. Kapila was awarded the highest honour for young artists by the Government of India – the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, the Kumar Gandharva Samman of the Government of Madhya Pradesh and the Sanskriti Award of the Sanskriti Pratisthan.