Akram Khan’s Bangladeshi homecoming

We received an email in 2010 to tell us that Akram Khan would like to bring an 11-member team to Bangladesh to research his next project. We, at the British Council Bangladesh, were asked to be their local host, meaning that we’d help with the programming and with who he’d meet while he was there, and we gave a very eager “yes”. I felt that Bangladesh has missed out on 'claiming' Akram’s Bangladeshi side as its own, so it was a great opportunity for British Council Bangladesh to take on.

When he first came to Dhaka I remember him just saying to us it was going to be a piece about ‘homeland’ and that it could be anyone anywhere connecting to their homeland – as vague as that. By the end of his seven-day research period it was going to be specifically about Bangladesh, with six Bangladeshi characters, and it was going to be called DESH, the second half of ‘Bangladesh’, which basically means homeland. I feel that the impact that Bangladesh had on him as an artist during that visit is amazing, and a great connection as far as Bangladesh or Bangladeshi audiences are concerned.

"I feel that the impact that Bangladesh had on him as an artist during that visit is amazing, and a great connection as far as Bangladesh or Bangladeshi audiences are concerned."

The piece has been performed all around the world, but I think this Bangladeshi show is very special for a number of reasons. Firstly, because Akram’s parents are from Bangladesh, and he is in the truest sense a British Bangladeshi. Secondly, the project started from Bangladesh, as I said before, during the research week, and is now coming back to the country after touring the world for three years, so it really will be a homecoming. And lastly, there are a lot of things that the Akram Khan Company is doing for the Bangladesh performance that they haven’t offered for other countries.

For one, the performance space is different. We contacted Akram quite last minute (in January this year) and he said straight away he could do September, which is when we could have him, even though it was his vacation time. And then we realised that Akram’s two sets (which he usually travels with) will be in two different parts of the world, and that they just didn’t have enough time to travel to Bangladesh. So we decided to build a brand new stage in Bangladesh for the show, made in Bangladesh with Bangladeshi material. It’s going to be a very Bangladeshi production in every sense; the wood, the cloth, the artisans who make the stage are all going to be Bangladeshi, so it’s going to be a really poignant experience for Akram as an artist. The stage won’t be the same that people have seen around the world, and, I hope it’ll add to the experience.

"It’s going to be a very Bangladeshi production in every sense..."

Akram will be doing two shows in Bangladesh. The auditorium holds 700 people, but we’re looking for ways to expand this as much as we can. We’ll record the performance to be shown on TV two or three weeks later to a nationwide audience, and we’ll also use the fields outside the theatre so that people can have a picnic and watch a live stream on big screens outside the auditorium. We really want to work hard to show Akram and DESH to as many people as possible.

The practicalities of organising the production are huge; I think we can home in on things like income targets or how much money we need to be earning for this thing to happen, but the most important thing for me as Head of Arts for Bangladesh is that I don’t want any of the stakeholders of this huge project to feel disappointed about the experience that the audience has. I also want Akram’s experience of coming to Bangladesh as an artist with his masterpiece to be as fulfilling as it can be, and the same for everyone from his company who’s doing workshops for us, sponsors who are going to be paying for it, viewers who will watch it on TV. I would want everyone to be thinking, “My god this has been such a journey, and it’s all been worth it”.

Eeshita Azad is British Council Head of Arts for Bangladesh, and she was speaking to Eleanor Turney. Akram Khan's DESH will be performed in Dhaka, Bangladesh in September 2014.