CREATURE
Akram Khan and English National Ballet
London and International Tour
23 Sep - 26 Feb
23 September- 02 October 2021
Harris Theatre, Chicago
24-26 February 2022
A new ballet by Akram Khan, his second full-length production for English National Ballet.
Following the pivotal impact of Dust and Giselle, Akram Khan returns to English National Ballet for his third collaboration with us.
In a dilapidated former Arctic research station, the Creature has been conscripted by a military brigade into a bold new experimental programme. He is being tested for his mental and physical ability to adapt to extreme cold, isolation and homesickness; vital qualities in mankind’s proposed colonisation of the ‘final frontiers’ on earth and beyond.
Creature is an unearthly tale of exploitation and human frontiers inspired by Georg Büchner’s expressionist classic Woyzeck, with shadows of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Drawing on themes of abandonment, isolation and the fragility of the mind, Creature is the tale of an outsider and the search for belonging.
“The outcast, the stranger, have been a common theme in my work”, says Khan. “In Creature, I am looking further into the areas related to the sense of abandonment, rage and loss.”
Khan is joined by a brilliant creative team of Academy Award-winning designer Tim Yip, composer and sound designer Vincenzo Lamagna, lighting designer Michael Hulls and dramaturg Ruth Little.
A co-production between English National Ballet and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (OBV)
Co-producers; Sadler’s Wells, London
Nominated for the FEDORA VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Prize for Ballet 2019
***All images and information courtesy of English National Ballet***