0:00:08 > 0:00:11Welcome to HARDtalk I am Stephen Sackur, in every culture
0:00:11 > 0:00:13on Earth dances is a physical, joyful form of expression
0:00:13 > 0:00:17and communication.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20It is, in a way the world's most basic common language.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Well, my guest today epitomises the ability of dance to cross
0:00:24 > 0:00:27borders of time and space.
0:00:27 > 0:00:32Akram Khan is British by birth, Bangladeshi by family heritage
0:00:32 > 0:00:34and now globally renowned as one of the great contemporary
0:00:34 > 0:00:37dancers and choreographers.
0:00:37 > 0:00:42His performances weave together influences from East and West,
0:00:42 > 0:00:51past and present, how would he define his dance?
0:00:52 > 0:01:14past and present, how would he define his dance?
0:01:14 > 0:01:15Akram Khan, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17Thank you, welcome.
0:01:17 > 0:01:22It seems to me so many of the great professional dancers have been
0:01:22 > 0:01:24raised in one very strict discipline, one cultural tradition,
0:01:24 > 0:01:29but that isn't quite true of you, is it?
0:01:29 > 0:01:33No.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37I was born and brought up in London, so already I was exposed to many,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40many different cultural activities from very, very
0:01:40 > 0:01:43different backgrounds.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48But, my mother wanted me to learn something from her roots and not
0:01:48 > 0:01:52just language because language was very crucial to her,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55because of the independence of Bangladesh, the movement
0:01:55 > 0:01:59originally started for the war to fight
0:01:59 > 0:02:02between East Pakistan and...
0:02:02 > 0:02:03So, the Bengali identity,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05Bangladeshi identity was hugely important.
0:02:05 > 0:02:06Did you learn Bengali?
0:02:06 > 0:02:10I did, because she refused to speak to me in English.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13She knew I would learn English in school because I was born
0:02:13 > 0:02:14and brought up here.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16She wanted me to be in touch with her language,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19her culture, but also something that was classical.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23That was close to her culture and classical Indian dancing
0:02:23 > 0:02:26was the right thing, so that's what she forced me
0:02:26 > 0:02:27into, or pushed me into.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29This would be the Kathak tradition?
0:02:29 > 0:02:31It is Kathak, exactly, north Indian classical dancing.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34So, as a kid, you were living in South London, your dad
0:02:34 > 0:02:37running a restaurant, but were you told that you would be
0:02:38 > 0:02:40going to dance lessons, the Kathak traditional
0:02:40 > 0:02:41dance lessons.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Yes, it was more of a bribe, if I went I would get
0:02:45 > 0:02:51something at the end of it because I was a kind of, of course,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54when you are exposed to so many different things,
0:02:54 > 0:02:56I was heavily into Michael Jackson...
0:02:56 > 0:02:58How did your mother feel about that?
0:02:58 > 0:03:01She was alright, she was OK.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Is it true that you won a prize at school for the best
0:03:05 > 0:03:07version of Thriller, the Michael Jackson routine?
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Yes, it was two things it was Michael Jackson,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14I did a routine, and it was 5-star which is a group in that period that
0:03:14 > 0:03:20I used to love and they used to be inspired by Michael Jackson,
0:03:20 > 0:03:22so I won something about.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24So I guess even, I don't know if we're talking what,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28ten, 11, 12 years old, you were becoming a sort of fusion
0:03:28 > 0:03:31in a way of different influences and I wonder whether that when
0:03:31 > 0:03:34as you progressed through adolescence and you became very keen
0:03:34 > 0:03:38on different forms of dancing whether there was a tension
0:03:38 > 0:03:41in you about which direction to go, to follow?
0:03:41 > 0:03:45I think the tension, yes there was, but the tension comes
0:03:45 > 0:03:49from my community and social constructs of my parents' community,
0:03:49 > 0:03:52because academics was really important for them,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55because they were recently independent as a country,
0:03:56 > 0:04:02they felt education was the way forward and dance was a hobby,
0:04:02 > 0:04:05so up to this day, I mean, my community is great
0:04:05 > 0:04:07and wonderful and supportive, but I do get the
0:04:07 > 0:04:08occasional, "what do
0:04:08 > 0:04:12you do as a real job?"
0:04:12 > 0:04:14LAUGHTER And that's OK...
0:04:14 > 0:04:16And did religion...
0:04:16 > 0:04:18Obviously, your parents were from a Muslim tradition.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20Yes.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Was that in any way relevant, was there any religious impulse
0:04:23 > 0:04:26to go in one particular tradition or direction rather than to embrace
0:04:26 > 0:04:29Michael Jackson, for example?
0:04:30 > 0:04:32No, my mother was extremely open, she is a very open,
0:04:32 > 0:04:34she studied literature, Bengali literature,
0:04:34 > 0:04:39but she also studied mythology from Greek mythology,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Hindu mythology, she was fascinated by stories, narratives,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46and she kind of coached me into it and guided me into it
0:04:46 > 0:04:48from a young age.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Many people from around the world will probably be familiar
0:04:51 > 0:04:54with the Billy Elliot story of the kid Northern,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57industrial town, a mining sort of town who is a brilliant natural
0:04:57 > 0:05:01dancer and then has to struggle with himself and his family
0:05:01 > 0:05:05and his community about getting into the right sort of dance school.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08Yes. To explore his passion.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10That isn't quite what you're telling me.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14It wasn't that, sort of, having to escape.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18No, first of all I don't, I wantto be very honest,
0:05:18 > 0:05:23I was not naturally, I'm not naturally talented.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27What I am is, I have one talent and that is I,
0:05:27 > 0:05:31when I get obsessed with something I commit to it in a very
0:05:31 > 0:05:37extreme way, I can go into my parent's garage,
0:05:37 > 0:05:44which I did at the age of I think, just after GCSEs, I was lost
0:05:44 > 0:05:48for a while and I went into my parent's garage
0:05:48 > 0:05:50and they thought I was at college.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54So, for a year I was hiding out in my dad's garage.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56Doing what?
0:05:56 > 0:05:58Training in Indian classical dance and that is my talent,
0:05:58 > 0:06:00I did ten hours a day.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04Wow, entirely in secret, private just for yourself?
0:06:04 > 0:06:06Yes, that was my form of escape.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10I just wanted to get really good at it, I just became obsessed by it,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13I was fascinated by Kathak, north Indian classical dance.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17And yet, if we fast forward a little bit to get to where your career
0:06:17 > 0:06:20begins to take off you actually entered a very different environment
0:06:20 > 0:06:25you went to one of the UK's top contemporary dance schools and then
0:06:25 > 0:06:28you started to get work which was beginning to make your name,
0:06:28 > 0:06:34not in the strict Kathak tradition but by actually finding a dance
0:06:34 > 0:06:38language which combined some eastern traditional expression with a lot
0:06:38 > 0:06:43of very, very contemporary, edgy, current Western dance.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45Yeah, yeah.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48I call it confusion.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52People like to call, used to call the work fusion,
0:06:52 > 0:06:55but I preferred to call it confusion, because really my body
0:06:55 > 0:06:58was very confused at the time and I think out of that confusion
0:06:58 > 0:07:03you start to search for your voice.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05Your identity, in a way, which you're exploring,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07actually through dance.
0:07:07 > 0:07:08Yes.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11But, it could have been writing, or music or whatever,
0:07:11 > 0:07:16but you you were very much autobiographical in a way.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18A lot of my work is autobiographical.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21I like to touch, there is a lot of questions
0:07:21 > 0:07:22I would like to explore.
0:07:22 > 0:07:23That went through my childhood.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26As I said, Michael Jackson wasn't the only person,
0:07:26 > 0:07:31I loved Charlie Chaplin, I loved Fred Astaire,
0:07:31 > 0:07:35Buster Keaton, Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee, all these people
0:07:35 > 0:07:37were my super heroes.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40You brought Ali with you.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43I thought HARDtalk, who's harder than Bruce.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46It's a great cue, actually because we want to show everybody
0:07:46 > 0:07:49a little bit of your dance, some of the stuff you have done.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Perhaps your most autobiographical work was Kaash, which took you,
0:07:53 > 0:07:56in a way, back to Bangladesh.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Let's just enjoy 30 seconds or so of this.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32For me, it's fascinating on so many levels, here you are,
0:08:32 > 0:08:36the movement I love it so expressive, but also there's
0:08:36 > 0:08:41a longing in it and a relationship between you and Bangladesh,
0:08:41 > 0:08:44as represented by the nature, there.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47I'm trying to figure out whether it's actually,
0:08:47 > 0:08:51in a sense, sad or whether it's a very positive thing.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53I think it's both.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58The story is about my father.
0:08:58 > 0:09:06In a way, I started the show with hammering this kind of grave.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09So, when I told my father that, look, the show is kind
0:09:09 > 0:09:11of about you and me and he was excited.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14I said hold on, I have to tell you something you're dead
0:09:15 > 0:09:18at the beginning of the show and he said, "you've killed me off
0:09:18 > 0:09:20already and not even dead in real life."
0:09:20 > 0:09:24So he was taken aback by that, but it's very much about my,
0:09:24 > 0:09:30about how my father or how fathers from a different culture,
0:09:30 > 0:09:33when they're in another environment, they start to question
0:09:33 > 0:09:38what they want their children, which direction they want them to be...
0:09:39 > 0:09:42He kept on saying to me when I was a teenager,
0:09:42 > 0:09:46I was imitating a lot of Michael Jackson, Bruce Lee,
0:09:46 > 0:09:49all these people who were my super heroes, and he said,
0:09:49 > 0:09:53I want you to be more Bangladeshi.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56I still to this day don't know what that means.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00It was really something in his own mind that he believed in.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02Partly you are exploring your relationship to him, but in terms
0:10:02 > 0:10:05of your own relationship with the culture you grew up
0:10:05 > 0:10:10in in London and then in the dance world in the West,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13but also very regularly visiting Bangladesh.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17Did you mean, and do you feel like an outsider, actually,
0:10:17 > 0:10:19in both cultures and countries?
0:10:19 > 0:10:22Yes, I do.
0:10:22 > 0:10:29I never felt an outsider in Britain as much as when Brexit happened.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33In Bangladesh I always felt like an outsider.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36I feel more British when I'm in Bangladesh and I feel more
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Bangladeshi when I'm in Britain, so for me it's about no borders,
0:10:41 > 0:10:46really, a home is where for me, where family is and where
0:10:46 > 0:10:48they feel most safe.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52I'm interested that you say you never felt more of an outsider
0:10:52 > 0:10:55in the UK than you do today, because just from reading things
0:10:55 > 0:10:58that you said in the past there were difficult experiences
0:10:58 > 0:10:59when you were a kid.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01Your father's restaurant sometimes was visited by pretty
0:11:01 > 0:11:03obnoxious, racist people.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06Yes, we went through a really bad period.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08And I think many people from the Bangladeshi community
0:11:08 > 0:11:10and others would say, actually there is less
0:11:10 > 0:11:13overt racism today then there was back then,
0:11:13 > 0:11:1630, 40 years ago.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19I wonder why you feel more of an outsider now?
0:11:19 > 0:11:20It's changing, no?
0:11:20 > 0:11:22With Brexit I think things are changing.
0:11:22 > 0:11:32I think that racism has an open door now, somehow, a bigger voice,
0:11:32 > 0:11:38the sense of creating walls with other cultures,
0:11:38 > 0:11:44xenophobia, fear of the other, fear of the foreigner, from me a lot
0:11:44 > 0:11:48of my work explores that.
0:11:48 > 0:11:50You weave that into the stuff you are doing.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54Because that's my reality, I explore things that happen to me
0:11:54 > 0:11:56or that are surrounding me.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Coming back to the point about mash up and fusion,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04and want to bring in another clip because it seems so relevant
0:12:04 > 0:12:05to what you are saying right now.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08You took a classical ballet, Giselle out, you worked
0:12:08 > 0:12:11with the English National Ballet and gave it a contemporary twist.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14When you talk about walls and talk about immigrants coming
0:12:14 > 0:12:20you reimagined a love story taking place with Giselle
0:12:20 > 0:12:23who is active garment worker, a very poor girl and let's
0:12:23 > 0:12:26just look at the imagery that comes from your Giselle.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43Again, stunning images, very different from the clip
0:12:43 > 0:12:46that we saw earlier.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49What was it like working with the English National Ballet
0:12:49 > 0:12:53and with Tamara Rojo who is one of the great contemporary dancers?
0:12:53 > 0:12:56It was extraordinary, I mean, you know, particularly working
0:12:56 > 0:13:00with the English National Ballet, I have not worked with
0:13:00 > 0:13:06other ballet companies, and English National Ballet,
0:13:06 > 0:13:08I was always apprehensive of working with a ballet company...
0:13:08 > 0:13:11Were they open to you? Yes.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13To what you were bringing which is probably very different
0:13:13 > 0:13:15to everything they have worked with before.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19That is why I was apprehensive about if they would be open.
0:13:19 > 0:13:20They were extraordinarly gernerous and really daring,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23they really support of the entire process and kudos to
0:13:23 > 0:13:29the Tamara and her team, they are extraordinary.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35Classical repertoire has a heritage.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38It has a lot of weight, so I could feel the weight.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41And Giselle is a very loved piece, and it's
0:13:41 > 0:13:43an extraordinary piece of work.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48So, to take it and then have the audacity to...
0:13:48 > 0:13:50You didn't dance in that, did you?
0:13:50 > 0:13:53No, no, I wish I could do ballet.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56I was going to say, you said very modestly at the beginning
0:13:56 > 0:13:59of the interview the secret was you weren't very talented
0:13:59 > 0:14:01I don't think anybody watching that would believe that,
0:14:01 > 0:14:03but could you have been?
0:14:03 > 0:14:05Could you imagine now, you're so experienced
0:14:05 > 0:14:08in the world of dance, if you had gone in a different
0:14:08 > 0:14:11direction, could you have been a classical ballet dancer?
0:14:11 > 0:14:11policy
0:14:11 > 0:14:14I don't think so, I used to love Nureyev and Baryshnikov,
0:14:14 > 0:14:19they were also one of my heroes, both of them were extraordinary
0:14:19 > 0:14:22ballet dancers and I always dreamed of being like them.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24What do you think you don't have?
0:14:24 > 0:14:28Personally, I don't have the body for it,
0:14:28 > 0:14:33I don't have the flexibility, but it depends because maybe
0:14:33 > 0:14:36as a child perhaps if I had started early enough,
0:14:36 > 0:14:38but, you know Nureyev started much later, but still, I mean,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40he's just exquisite, but...
0:14:40 > 0:14:44So, you use your body in a very different way.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46Absolutely.
0:14:46 > 0:15:00I'm interested in that, I'd like you to determine
0:15:00 > 0:15:03a little bit about how, the mechanics of how you tell
0:15:03 > 0:15:04stories with your body.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07What are the great gifts that you need, what kind of flexibility
0:15:07 > 0:15:10and what kind of expression can get out of your body?
0:15:10 > 0:15:13For me, the flexibility idea with is an illusion,
0:15:13 > 0:15:14I work with illusion of flexibility.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18I don't truly have an immense range at all, physically, but I'm fast,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21that is one thing I've always been, because of my training in Kathak
0:15:21 > 0:15:24because you have to wear these very heavy belts around your ankles
0:15:25 > 0:15:27and you train for hours and it is like having
0:15:27 > 0:15:28weights around your ankles.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31The moment you take them off you're like Speedy Gonzales.
0:15:31 > 0:15:33You are super fast.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37So, I think, also fear, fear of revealing I'm not flexible,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40so I'd rather do things very fast.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43So, things will become a blur, so you would be
0:15:43 > 0:15:44like, is he flexible?
0:15:44 > 0:15:45I didn't quite catch that...
0:15:45 > 0:15:48And, so in a way my stylistic development came out
0:15:48 > 0:15:56of the necessity of hiding what I was not good at.
0:15:56 > 0:16:01Well, when you tell me about the things you took
0:16:01 > 0:16:04from your Kathak tradition, it also reminds me that on this
0:16:04 > 0:16:08journey of yours through different dance traditions and fusing things
0:16:08 > 0:16:13together you have, in recent years, gone quite regularly to India
0:16:13 > 0:16:18and I guess to Bangladesh, as well to put on some shows
0:16:18 > 0:16:22and I know, that there has been a resistance to you.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24People felt you had betrayed the tradition, but that
0:16:24 > 0:16:27seems to have changed, because now you get huge acclaim
0:16:27 > 0:16:28and audiences in India.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31They now more open minded, do you think?
0:16:31 > 0:16:34I think, always the traditionalists will be a little bit negative
0:16:34 > 0:16:45or a bit difficult, with absorbing what I do or accepting what I do.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49But, it has changed and got a lot better.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51I have to say the younger generation are amazing,
0:16:51 > 0:16:52they have really embraced it.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55In India it's so exciting, I love performing in India
0:16:55 > 0:16:58and Bangladesh, too.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Dance strikes me as, I guess I said it in the introduction,
0:17:01 > 0:17:04it's such a sort of elemental art form, because in the end
0:17:04 > 0:17:07you are communicating through your body and I can see that
0:17:07 > 0:17:10one of the implications of that is that as you age,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13and as your body becomes perhaps, you know, less powerful,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16less potent, it affects your ability to tell stories and express
0:17:16 > 0:17:20in the way that you want to.
0:17:20 > 0:17:26I would say, technically yes, I think, you know, it depends
0:17:26 > 0:17:29if you look at it from a Western perspective or an eastern,
0:17:29 > 0:17:36Asian perspective.
0:17:36 > 0:17:37Explain.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40It depends also on the dance form.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43In Kathak the real masters are when they are at their
0:17:43 > 0:17:50peak from 40 onwards.
0:17:50 > 0:17:51Everything else before that is preparation.
0:17:51 > 0:17:52Training.
0:17:52 > 0:17:52Yes.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55I think in western classical dance form it is much earlier because,
0:17:55 > 0:17:59it's not just about having strength it's about knowing how to use that
0:17:59 > 0:18:01strength in a poetic way and a deeper way.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05For me, the older I become the less, of course I have to abandon
0:18:05 > 0:18:09the reality that my body cannot do some of the things that I would love
0:18:09 > 0:18:12to do when I was 30, but then I find other things
0:18:12 > 0:18:15and I find other ways to express that same movement.
0:18:15 > 0:18:29Get it across in a different way.
0:18:30 > 0:18:36You do less dancing now and probably more...
0:18:36 > 0:18:37I do more training.
0:18:37 > 0:18:38Training and...
0:18:38 > 0:18:39I do more training now.
0:18:39 > 0:18:40You mean for yourself?
0:18:40 > 0:18:41Physical training?
0:18:41 > 0:18:42Yes, I have to.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44Right, so you have to actually train more.
0:18:44 > 0:18:49Even more than I did before.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52The reason why I think it is important, when discussing
0:18:52 > 0:18:55dance, to get into the physicality of it, is because it is so important
0:18:55 > 0:18:58and you'd said, and they think there were three of you,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01leading to in contemporary dance in the UK he wrote
0:19:01 > 0:19:09a letter not long ago, an open letter, saying that the,
0:19:09 > 0:19:12as far as you were concerned the new generation of young,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14contemporary dancers in the UK were not disciplined enough,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18not hungry enough, not training hard enough to be the very best and that
0:19:18 > 0:19:22a lot of the best young dancers you could see and that
0:19:22 > 0:19:24you want to work within your own company were actually
0:19:24 > 0:19:25coming from overseas.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27We were talking more specifically about the training,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29perhaps selfishly geared toward our company's work,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32so I always needed very strong, technical dancers, and I felt that
0:19:33 > 0:19:35at that time, the dancers that I was singing coming out
0:19:36 > 0:19:39of the colleges were not geared towards the kind of dancers I was
0:19:39 > 0:19:50looking for and perhaps the same for the other two choreographers.
0:19:50 > 0:19:55It's not a basic hunger thing, you're not saying that
0:19:55 > 0:19:58young people today are...
0:19:58 > 0:20:02With so many different forms of entertainment and art and culture
0:20:02 > 0:20:05around them are not dedicating themselves to dance in the way that
0:20:05 > 0:20:08you have do to be the very top.
0:20:08 > 0:20:16I think in any form if you really want to have a profound impact on it
0:20:16 > 0:20:20you have do become obsessed by it and I do believe, deep down,
0:20:20 > 0:20:25that whatever technique it is, it has two inprison you,
0:20:25 > 0:20:29you have to learn it so much, you have to learn about it so much,
0:20:29 > 0:20:32you have to do it so much that eventually that imprisonment,
0:20:32 > 0:20:35you find freedom out of that imprisonment, you find freedom out
0:20:35 > 0:20:39of that form that you have been trying to perfect.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42But, it means you go through an awful lot
0:20:42 > 0:20:43of pain on the way.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45Yes, pain of course, but everything is pain,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48anything is hard work, if you want to be good at anything
0:20:48 > 0:20:51you have to work hard, you have to sacrifice stuff
0:20:51 > 0:20:54and you if you feel it is a sacrifice then
0:20:54 > 0:20:55it is already a problem.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58If you consider you, to be where you are,
0:20:58 > 0:21:00you had to put in many, many hours of work,
0:21:00 > 0:21:02you have to do do it,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04you have to go through it.
0:21:04 > 0:21:06What now, then, for you, because you do an awful
0:21:06 > 0:21:09lot around the world.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12I'm just going to make other people go through it now.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14LAUGHTER
0:21:14 > 0:21:16I'm done doing it.
0:21:16 > 0:21:17Going through the pain.
0:21:17 > 0:21:18You mean, you're seriously contemplating quitting
0:21:18 > 0:21:20being in active dancer altogether?
0:21:20 > 0:21:22I think and slowly winding down, yes, for sure,
0:21:22 > 0:21:23I don't tour so heavily.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27Maybe a few more years and then I may do a small role,
0:21:27 > 0:21:29because I love to dance anyway.
0:21:29 > 0:21:36But, I love to dance for my children, you know,
0:21:36 > 0:21:41I love to dance in the living room, I love, these days, the training
0:21:41 > 0:21:44part is the bit that I don't like any more,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47used to love it before but it hurt so much.
0:21:47 > 0:21:48Right.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50It's like running, when you were born at 20,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54it's different to anyone at 30, go for a jog, the spring changes
0:21:54 > 0:21:57the way you run changes, and when you run at 40 it's
0:21:57 > 0:22:01different from the way you run at 40, you feel it, and so,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04I feel a huge different is what I felt at 20 and 30,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08so I enjoy the performance part of it but not the training part
0:22:08 > 0:22:09of it and I think that...
0:22:09 > 0:22:13I just wonder whether you're going to be happy when you have quit
0:22:13 > 0:22:14dancing professionally, because you've said,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17sometimes you feel overwhelmed with the amount of stuff,
0:22:17 > 0:22:19politics, administration that comes with running a company and doing
0:22:20 > 0:22:23all of the stuff that means that you can get your shows around
0:22:23 > 0:22:26the world, but not actually involving you dancing on the stage.
0:22:26 > 0:22:33If that becomes your life, will you find that deeply frustrating?
0:22:33 > 0:22:37I think I will, but I will still keep dancing in the privacy
0:22:37 > 0:22:42of my own space, I think.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45I love to explore the ideas that I cannot do in my own body
0:22:45 > 0:22:48in other people's bodies.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Like working with English National Ballet, their extraordinary ability
0:22:53 > 0:22:58facility that they have, pushes the language further and,
0:22:58 > 0:23:04they come already with a very solid training of ballet so this kind
0:23:04 > 0:23:07of connection between what I do and at the ballet body,
0:23:07 > 0:23:08was fascinating for me.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11I was fascinated by the point shoes.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15And what women can do one point, it's just extraordinary,
0:23:15 > 0:23:19I've seen it before, but until you work with them
0:23:19 > 0:23:22directly you truly, really, you really respect it because it's
0:23:22 > 0:23:23an extraordinary technique.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26What it did was transform the material that I usually create
0:23:26 > 0:23:31and my body to my dancers.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34To end, any thoughts on the next big sort of theme
0:23:34 > 0:23:36that you might take an?
0:23:37 > 0:23:39You've talked a lot about immigration and though walls
0:23:39 > 0:23:42that people build between cultures, what's the big theme that
0:23:42 > 0:23:46you might tackle next?
0:23:46 > 0:23:52Definitely the body, but I'm interested in the mythological body,
0:23:52 > 0:23:54and the technological future body.
0:23:54 > 0:23:54Robots, artificial intelligence.
0:23:55 > 0:23:55Absolutely, yes.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57I look forward to seeing it.
0:23:57 > 0:23:57Thank you.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Akram Khan, it's been a pleasure to have you on HARDtalk,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02Thank you very much, indeed.
0:24:02 > 0:24:02Thank you very much.