Akram Khan Company - Jungle Book Reimagined

[Jan McNulty]

I was at the Birmingham Hippodrome on Friday afternoon (with a few other adults and at least 8 schools) to see Jungle Book Reimagined, which is about as far away as you can get from the Disney depiction.

 

This Jungle Book is a powerful indictment of the destruction of the climate crisis and is really rather dark and bleak.  There is an almost invisible scrim at the front of the stage and a dark back-cloth both of which are used for incredible projections.  The rest of the set is cardboard boxes.  The sound track is a mix of voices and music as a cast of actors speak the words that the dancers move and dance to.  

 

The opening projections are depictions of a flooded world with humans trying to escape on rafts.  Mowgli falls off her family's raft and almost drowns before being saved by the animals.  The animals are a somewhat dysfunctional group consisting of monkeys who have escaped from laboratories and escaped zoo animals.  Apart from their movements there are no costumes to depict which animals they are.  The animals hold a court to see whether Mowgli should be killed or saved.  She is saved and put to work.  She is then captured by the Lab Monkeys who are fascinated by her hands and want to become human.  Somewhere in the mix there is a hunter shooting animals.  When Mowgli is rescued she sets off to find and get rid of the hunter.

 

Kaa is impressively represented by dancers carrying cardboard boxes and is a really believable snake.

 

Akram Khan has assembled a fine cast of 10 dancers.  None of the parts are named but I particularly enjoyed Thomasin Gülgeç (whom I recognised from his Rambert days) and Vanessa Vince-Pang (ex-Phoenix).

 

The movements have elements of kathak and contemporary but I would say it is movement rather than a completely danced performance.

 

I found the piece to be effective and moving.  My friend loathed it.  You pay your money and you make your choice.