Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist and internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer Akram Khan returns to his roots to create his first full-length contemporary dance solo 'Desh', inspired by his home country of Bangladesh. 'Desh' is to be performed again at Sadler’s Wells from21st - 25th February 2012 following its World Premiere at The Curve, Leicester in 2011. A world-class collection of artists brought together from all over the globe have collaborated with Khan to create a set of staggering breadth and scale for 'Desh', bringing the beauty and brutality of Bangladesh to the stage.

Oscar and BAFTA winning Chinese designer Tim Yip (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) has created the set and costume designs for the show. Other artistic collaborators for 'Desh' include award-winning British lighting designer and fellow Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Michael Hulls and Olivier award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook. Completing the creative team are French-Indian writer and poet Karthika Nair and slam poet Polar Bear, who co-writes the script for 'Desh'.

About Akram Khan Company

Akram Khan Company was founded by Akram Khan and his producer Farooq Chaudhry in 2000. The company has established a worldwide reputation for work that is ambitious, powerful, fresh, relevant and profoundly moving. Few dance artists are able to reach out to audiences in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Australia and Asia and are able to be understood and enjoyed by them in the way Khan is. A classicist and a modernist, the storytelling in Khan’s work has an uncanny ability to reflect our times and in the past ten years he has reinvigorated perceptions of dance, other art forms and cultures.

The company has won an array of awards including The Age Critics Award for ‘Best New Work’ at the 2010 Melbourne Arts Festival and the Helpmann Award for ‘Best Choreography in a Dance Work’ at the 2007 Sydney Festival. Khan was awarded the South Bank Sky Arts Dance Award and ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award in January 2011. The company has also collaborated with some of the world’s best- known performers and artists including Kylie Minogue, Juliette Binoche, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Sylvie Guillem, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Nitin Sawhney.

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