
1 minute read
The myth of inglorious war
from 2018-04 Adelaide
by Indian Link
Akram Khan , in his last solo performance at the Adelaide Festival, leaves his fans with an unforgettable experience
BY AVI CHANDIOK
Haunting. Grim. Spellbinding.
Superstar dancer Akram Khan’s swansong at the Adelaide Festival 2018 was all that and much more in his latest production, Xenos Adelaide audiences have a fond association with Khan. Thirty years ago, at the tender age of 13, he took part in Peter Brook’s benchmark-setting all-night adaptation of the Mahabharata held at Anstey Quarry in Adelaide.
Xenos revisits the power of myth and absorbs the story of Prometheus, a culthero of Greek mythology, who gave human-kind fire and who, as Khan said, ‘knew that humans would keep repeating their mistakes but hoped they would learn from them’.
So wars are human folly where lessons are never learnt. Xenos, which means stranger, is the story of one Indian soldier out of millions who fought for the Colonial powers and suffered the agony of fear, deprivation, toil and death. It was not his war; he was a stranger to the conflict and to the alien lands where it took place.
Talking about Xenos, Khan says, “Indian soldiers had a very specific role in the first World War – to lay down telephone cables so teams could share information. So I play, for instance, a cook who is