A fascinating in-depth interview late last year on Radio New Zealand between Akram Khan and Kim Hill—(which of her interviews has not been deep and fascinating?)—is well worth accessing in RNZ archive. It’s no surprise to learn there that the bright mind and ferocious drive from Khan’s youngest days has followed through to his celebrated career as choreographer today. Jungle Book Reimagined.

We have seen other work by Khan here some Festivals back, in a program shared with French dancer Sylvie Guillem, and more recently and most memorably, in English National Ballet’s production of his Giselle in an Auckland season. That classic too was ‘re-imagined’ in a timeless setting, and a huge set was used to great effect for the dramatic dancing that nonetheless remained central to the work. 

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As the title suggests this is a new rendering of Rudyard Kipling’s famous tale The Jungle Book.

Renowned choreographer Akram Khan, in his dance/drama version, has set the story in a near future world under duress. The central character of Mowgli becomes a climate refugee separated from her mother in a drowning chaotic world where society has broken down.

At the heart of Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined is a company of glorious dance artists. They bring extraordinary expressiveness and detail to embody the characters of the story.

Space is stretched, bodies are curves of threnodic phrasing. Movement rests on a foundation of Kathak, a classical Indian dance form which is Khan’s original idiom.

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A static news broadcast gathers our attention as the house lights dim and we focus on the closed curtain. It’s 2029 (which is closer than you think!) flood waters are rising, nature is crying, food rations, you know the score. 

The rear curtain rises ever so slowly as, at the front hangs the finest gossamer scrim for purposes discovered shortly, revealing static silhouetted figures. 

Shortly the scene is set with black and white captivating graphics and video showing key global cities in devastation, refugees struggling to stay onboard floating rafts, images and situations regularly observed on our planet today. 

It is a frightened young, female refugee that becomes Mowgli, the human character in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, who has now been displaced in this crumbling world, it is her story. 

Skillful, leading-edge multi-layered technologies abound, driving the mood and intentions of the story. YeastCulture are creative geniuses; the video projections and animation is visually stunning and immersive, letting us enter a three dimensional decaying world. The scrim at the front of the stage displays magnificent projections of animals and birds, notably elephants, majestic and wise and the friendly, concerned Kite Chil who is often there for Mowgli guiding and showing her the way. 

Seven of the ten performers represent wolves most definitively, through their undulating physical smoothness and earthy, muscular tenacity. They work together convincingly as a pack and exclude Mowgli as a human addition. It’s Baloo (Sloth Bear) and Bagheera (Black Panther) and Akela (Wolf leader) who shine both in physical excellence and extraordinary characterization, capturing subtle nuances of animalism linked with human mannerisms. Kaa (the dastardly Indian Python) shrewdly presented as a collection of boxes in varying sizes, a rippling, lyrical powerhouse, transfixes Mowgli and others manipulating their decisions. 

I cannot speak highly enough of the perfectly timed and riveting unison dance sections, balanced with hints of Indian Kathak dance, flexed feet, story-telling hand gestures and deep bends in open positions, all tightly held in compact groupings, pack-like.

Act 2 opens in the same way as the show began, the slow rising of the rear curtain to another silhouetted scene of stillness, foreshadowing gloom of more animal and nature annihilation and devastation, the sound resounding deeply within us as we watch. 

We see a monkey court, perhaps serving as a metaphor of our defunct society with the monkey’s wanting power and dominance, just like us humans, the dancers again present striking personification through ape-like actions. 

Through more superb animated video, wise, fortuitous life tidbits help guide the story as periodically we are taken back to Mowgli’s past life in her village with her mother teaching her how to care for the animals and nature, taking and replacing just enough for their needs.

The common global themes and institutions that prevail in this fragile world of ours; war, power and control, religion, greed, dominance and neglect, sabotaging harmony, peace and renewal are all identified here in this adaptation of Kipling’s tale. There is a nod to Greta Thunberg and her speech at the United Nations in New York; …” How dare you, How dare you…”,  a reminder that the world needs much work. Ikram Khan has said “ …help us to listen again not to our voices, but voices of the natural world, that we, the modern world, silence”. 

Jungle Book reimagined is a brilliant piece of dance/theatre, uniquely binding digital technology and moody lighting by Michael Hull, that is, on occasion a little too gloomy. Miriam Buether’s, simple, yet effective stage set, sound design by Gareth Fry, original score by Jocelyn Pook and of course the fabulous CultureYeast’s digital imagery, all combine masterfully with Khan’s vision to “relearn and reimagine a new world together”. Let’s do it! 

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