About Akram Khan Company

Founded in August 2000 by Choreographer Akram Khan and Producer Farooq Chaudhry, Akram Khan Company journeys across boundaries to create uncompromising artistic narratives. Having established itself as one of the foremost innovative dance companies in the world, the company is renowned for its intercultural, interdisciplinary collaborations and for challenging conventional ideas of traditional dance forms. The dance language in each production is rooted in Akram Khan’s classical Kathak and modern dance training and continually evolves to communicate ideas that are intelligent, courageous and new.
 
Akram Khan Company tours extensively both within the United Kingdom and internationally at leading international festival and venues, performing a diverse range of programmes including classical kathak solos, ensemble productions and artist-to-artist collaborations. The company has been awarded with several prestigious honours including the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Dance (2010, Gnosis), The Age Critics’ Award for Best New Work (2010, Vertical Road) at the Melbourne Arts Festival and the Helpmann Award for Best Choreography and Best Male Dancer (2007, zero degrees) in Sydney.  


Akram Khan
artistic director/choreographer/dancer
Akram Khan is one of the UK's most celebrated and respected dance artists. In just over a decade he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the cultural arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.

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, choreographer/dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, singer Kylie Minogue, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney and Jocelyn Pook.

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

Khan has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career including the Laurence Olivier Award, the prestigious ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and the Critics' Circle National Dance Award. Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005. He is also an Honorary Graduate of Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban.

Khan is an Associate Artist of MC2: Grenoble and Sadler’s Wells, London in a special international co-operation.

   www.akramkhancompany.net