Attiki Cultural Society - Portraits in Otherness

Portraits in Otherness

Curated by Dsnce producer Farooq Chaudhry, Producer of Akram Khan Company

Portraits in Otherness initiates a new chapter in the Dance history as it seeks to transfer the intangible value

of the ritual legacy to a new generation of dance artists.

This innovative platform consists of a series of solo works created by four highly charismatic

and distinctive early-career artists: Dickson Mbi, Maya Jilan Dong, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Rianto

and Ching-Ying Chien.

None of them can be identified by any particular genre or form.

They carry echoes and primal beauty of many dance languages both learned and inherited. They breathe new life into the spaces

that have kept these expressions apart and expand into the boundaries beyond them.

They create their own relevance by inhabiting and haunting these in-between territories.

This project also marks the first and international collaboration between Akram Khan Company

and Peacock Contemporary Dance Company in China.

As they share similar aspirations and ambitions within the international dance community, both companies join forces to nurture

talents from their respective geographies, and reflect the prism of otherness.

Portraits in Otherness has premiered at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London from 5 to 8 June 2018.

Whip

Whip takes its inspiration from the “Whip Dance”, one of the most popular folk dances of the Bai - an ethnic minority living in the Yunnan province in southwest of China. Amongst seventy-four other folk dances, the “Whip Dance” is charged and knitted with Bai’s history and customs. It represents their humor, primitive simplicity, elegance and energy.

Only a few Bai people know the most primitive version and Whip is a modern and personal interpretation instilling a new breath into a secular dance tradition. It represents Maya Dong’s homeland and conveys the aspirations of many people. Whip is an international collaboration with the talented London based Hong Kong composer Joanne Clara.

Choreographer/Dancer Maya Jilan Dong

Composer/Musician Joanne Clara

Lighting Designer Fabiana Piccioli

Costume Designer Marie Cantenys

Maya Jilan Dong

Choreographer/Dancer

Maya Jilan Dong is a Bai. The Bai are an ethnic minority living in the Yunnan Province in southwest of China. Raised in a rural village she grew up with nature - earth, trees, water, fire, heaven, humans and animals. In 2004 - when Maya was twelve - China’s iconic choreographer Yang Liping recognised her talents and invited Maya to join Yunnan Yang Liping Arts & Culture Company. Maya has danced in Yang’s most important works such as Dynamic Yunnan, Peacock, Under Siege, and Peacock Winter. She is one of the Company’s longest serving members.

Joanne Clara

Composer/Musician

Joanne Clara is a composer, performer and recording artist currently based in London. Her commissioned work includes writing for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Singers, New Perspectives Sinfonietta, Fidelio Trio, and Dulcinea Quartet.

Last summer, she worked alongside American film composers Mark Snow and Michael Levine at the ASCAP Filmscoring Program in New York, and is now working on a new short film ‘Daughter’ directed by Christian Kinde. Her work has so far been shown in cities such as Hong Kong, Nanjing, London, Manchester, Vienna, Udine, and Boston.

Since moving to the UK in 2005, Clara has received various commissions in both Asia and Europe to produce multimedia work for exhibitions and events such as the Sensing Spaces Architectural Installation at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Belle Shenkman Series for Michelangelo’s ‘The Entombment’ at the National Portrait Gallery.

As a multi-instrumentist, she has supported and played with artists such as Emeli Sandés, Bobby McFerrin, Matt Corby, The Staves etc. She has also recorded for Mercury-prize winner Michael Kiwanuka, and Roo Panes, a UK band whom she performs and tours with regularly.

This year, Clara has been recording various instrumental EPs that have been released via all major online platforms throughout the year. She has also been touring in the major cities of Asia, Europe and the Middle East to promote her latest releases since end of April.

Intermission

Medium - A solo work by Rianto

Rianto is a specialist in the Central Javanese form of Lengger, a cross gender dance form from Banyumas. In Medium, Rianto recalls the term Lengger as derived from elinga ngger, meaning the “advice to be aware, to remember”.

After the success of SoftMachine, Rianto returns to his hometown and relationship to the Lengger masters. He strives not only for the survival of this form, but especially the space it holds beyond binary opposites. A space between manhood and womanhood, between customs and religious principles, between conscious control and trance. Medium is Rianto’s universal call for freedom, for eschewing dogma and embracing the contradiction, mysteries and layered diversity that is at the heart of Javanese tradition.

A series of studies into the relationship between his religious body, social body, political body and traditional body. Rianto’s virtuosic movement language is combined with a powerful live vocal and percussion score by Cahwati, also from Banyumas. Together they unfold the relationship between movement and sound that lies at the core of the Lengger tradition.

Choreographer/Dancer Rianto

Dramaturgs Garin Nugroho, Tang Fu Kuen

Schenography Iskandar K. Loedin

Vocals and Percussion Cahwati

Sound Design Yasuhiro Morinaga

Production Coordinator Putri Pramesti Wigaringtyas

Producer Jala Adolphus

Artistic Director Akram Khan

Creative Producer Farooq Chaudhry

Choreographers/Dancers

Maya Jilan Dong

Rianto

Lighting Designer Fabiana Piccioli

Technical Director Richard Fagan

Portraits in Otherness Technical Manager Sander Loonen Sound Engineer Fred de Faye

Project Manager Christine Maupetit

Co-produced by Akram Khan Company, Sadler’s Wells London, Peacock Contemporary Dance Company China and

Attiki Cultural Society, Greece

Supported by Arts Council England

2019-2020 we are working on the European tour of Portraits in Otherness