Aakash Odedra

In January, Aakash brings his new powerfully-theatrical double bill to the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House.

For his latest work Murmur, he collaborates with Australian choreographer Lewis Major and Farooq Chaudhry as dramaturg. Odedra was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age. Finding written language alien, dance became his preferred mode of expression and Murmur is the imaginative expression of both his frustration with words and his liberation through dance and performance. Creative collaborators Ars Electronica Futurelab animate Odedra’s stage world with three-dimensional light and projection while a circle of electric fans create a nightmare vortex of swirling paper. The original soundtrack is by Nicky Wells, a protégée of Nitin Sawhney, classically trained in Indian music. Lighting is by Andrew Ellis.

The second piece in the double bill is rooted in Odedra’s own relationship with tradition, protection and meaning. His grandmother’s body was covered with tattoos intended to ensure her protection and to give a sense of belonging. Odedra has commissioned Olivier Award-winning choreographer Damien Jalet to make the work on him and, in Inked, his body too becomes a place of transformation, shape shifting to an insect or an animal while Odedra ritually inks his body to leave arcs and traces in the spaces around him. The original score is by Scott Morgan and lighting by Fabiana Piccioli winner of the Knight of Illumination Award for dance in 2013.