"EAST": Akram Khan, Ohad Naharin, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, by Laura D.

Three masterpieces by three masters of choreography

The 14th of April 2017 I went to see “EAST” by ‘Ballet Vlaanderen’ in the opera of Antwerp.
It was a performance of two hours and a half and consisted of three masterpieces by three of the most
renowned choreographers nowadays: Akram Khan, Ohad Naharin, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. It were
“Kaash” (Khan), “Secus” (Naharin) and “Requiem” (Cherkaoui) that were being performed that night.  

The first choreography to be brought on stage was “Kaash”. All dancers were wearing black
leggings with long black skirts, the females wore black shirts whereas the males were naked.
The choreography was about Hindu Gods, black holes, Indian time cycles, tablas, creation and
destruction, This was clearly visible. What was very remarkable was the spacing, the dancers
constantly changed the formations, without making it too big of a difference each time.
The music was very interesting as well, it sounded traditional as would be logical, linked to the
theme.
Overall I think for a big part it were the dancers’ qualities, demanded by the choreographer that
made the choreography so good for me, very controlled and precise, but also powerful with
never-ending flows, which was satisfying to look at.

Now let’s discuss “Secus” by Ohad Naharin. Naharin is my one of my favourite choreographers
nowadays so I was really looking forward to finally seeing his work live. I think he's an absolutely
brilliant choreographer, very innovating and 'out of the box' with his movement. But what I most
love about his work is the outstandingly original relation it has to the music he chooses, and the
visual images he works with, for example combinations of certain colours displayed by the
costumes or formations in space.
In Secus he uses the body in all its capabilities and not just in the way that’s common for most
dancers, as in classical ballet or other techniques for example -which is also fine naturally-.
The costumes consisted of simple pieces of clothing but with vivid colours. This created an
incredible sight.
He absolutely stands out to me, as I said already -but also definitely in this piece- his choice of
music is brilliant to me, really. The music he chose for this work was so mysterious and
miraculously building up to reach a point of clarity and satisfaction, but also catchy at the same
time. The way he used it in combination with this choreography is exceptional, to my opinion.
I really mean it when I say I find him genius at times. And on top of it all he has this great sense
of humour he likes to integrate in his work that's like the icing on the cake for me.

So for the third piece by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, I’d say he used dance in a very esthetic way, the
beauty of dance etc. That’s not exactly the style I like the most but it’s interesting to see how well
he elaborated it. The props that were being used were gigantic things set up at the side made out
of wood that made it seem like houses in a small street.

The choir sang within those props and it seemed as if though they were standing in houses and
looking through windows, the thing even contained second floors. This had a wonderful effect.
The singers also walked on stage with clothing dating from the past. All this together with the
music and choreography gave the whole thing the right atmosphere according to the subject that
was ‘Requiem’. But because of the many-sided limitation of this subject -as in musical choice,
freedom of choosing certain emotions to go with it, etc.- , logically due to its history,  I couldn’t call
this piece my favourite. However I would like to point out that I’m not talking on whether or not I
like Cherkaoui’s work, because I have been fond of works of his in the past.

So overall I can conclude that I adored Ohad Naharin’s piece, and that Akram Khan’s choreography
would come in second place for me because I thought it was very good but I always prefer more visually
based choreography, or more out of the box. Therefore Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s work wasn’t my favourite, I
felt like it was not really the style I love to see the most due to the heavy subject of course. The whole of
the three pieces was well put together, it formed a nice mix of very different styles and subjects. I would
highly recommend seeing this performance, it is an incredible chance to witness the work of three
completely different but excellent choreographers in only one evening.

Photography by:

Laurent Ziegler, Robert Wyatt, Koen Broos, Louis Fernandez, Yan Revazov, Filip Van Roe

Author: Laura D.