In-I Dance Theatre Co-directed and performed by: Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche

<Shanghai>
Time: 19:30, 27,28 March 2009,
Venue: Oriental Art Centre, Shanghai
Price: RMB 1080,880,680,480,380,280,180
Ticket booking: +86 021 68541234, 962288
www. shoac.com.cn

<Beijing>
Time: 19:30, 3,4,5 April 2009
Venue: Mei Lanfang Theatre, Beijing
Price: RMB 1280,880,680,480,380,280,180
Ticket booking: +86 010 65516930, 65516906, 400-620-6006
www.mypiao.com

Presented by:  Milky Way Arts & Communications Co. Ltd                                                                                                                 
Supported by:  Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy

Set design: Anish Kapoor
Lighting design: Michael Hulls
Composer: Philip Sheppard
Dramaturg: Guy Cools
Acting Coach: Susan Batson
Dance Coaches: Hsu Suman and Nikoleta Rafaelisova
Technical Manager: Fabiana Piccioli
Technical Coordinator: Sander Loonen
Producer: Farooq Chaudhry
Produced by: Khan Chaudhry Productions & Jubilation Production

Co-producers:

• Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
• National Theatre, London
• Theatre de la Ville, Paris
• Grand Theatre de Luxembourg
• Romaeuropa Festival, Rome
• La Monnaie, Brussels
• Sydney Opera House, Sydney
• Curve, Leicester

Supported by:

• Culturesfrance
• Arts Council England
• The Bell Cohen Charitable Foundation
• Theatre de l’Ouest Parisien – Boulogne Billancourt

Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche and internationally acclaimed contemporary dancer and choreographer Akram Khan have joined forces to create a major new work of dance theatre. In-I had its world premiere at the National Theatre in London on 18 September 2008 followed by touring internationally. Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has designed the set for this exciting production and award-winning composer Philip Sheppard has created the original score.

In-I takes both artists in new directions: Juliette Binoche is dancing having never danced on stage before and choreographer and dancer Akram Khan is acting and signing. Throughout their careers, Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan have both sought out surprising and challenging collaborations. Akram Khan has always taken an inter-disciplinary approach to dance and his collaborations range from the French prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem to pop star Kylie Minogue to writers, artists and musicians including Hanif Kureishi, Antony Gormley and Nitin Sawhney.

Juliette Binoche said: “With Akram, I felt that we could confront and share new desires, hopes and visions through our respective arts by inventing a common language. I don’t know the results yet, but I know the path that we’re taking is changing me radically. I never know what I’m capable of before I do it. I secretly hope that faith will take over. Any artistic expression is a means to an opening which doesn’t belong to anyone but links us to each other in a mysterious and necessary way.”

Akram Khan said: “Through my career, I have sought out unexpected collaboration with other artists to explore ideas and themes that are important to me. The project with Juliette has pushed me in unexpected directions and has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. I think we are both moving outside our comfort zones through working together to create something completely new.”

1. Akram Khan
Co-director and performer

Akram Khan is one of the most acclaimed choreographers of his generation working in Britain today. Born in London in 1974, into a family of Bangladeshi origin, he began dancing at the age of seven and studied with the great Kathak dancer and teacher Sri Pratap Pawar. He began his stage career aged 14, when he was cast in Peter Brook’s legendary production of Mahabharata, appearing in the TV version in 1988. After later studies in contemporary dance, he began presenting solo performances of his work in the 1990s, maintaining his commitment to the classical kathak repertoire as well as modern work. Among his best-known solo pieces are: Polaroid Feet (2001), Ronin (2003) and Third Catalogue (2005).

In August 2000, he launched his own company, and among his most notable company works are Kaash (2002), a collaboration with artist Anish Kapoor and composer Nitin Sawhney; ma (2004), winning a South Bank Show Award (2005); zero degrees (2005), a collaboration with dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, sculptor Antony Gormley and composer Nitin Sawhney, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells and was nominated for an Olivier Award in 2006. zero degrees won Best Choreography in a Ballet or Dance Work and Akram Khan won the award for Best Male Dancer in the prestigious annual Helpmann Awards held in Sydney, Australia in 2007.

Sacred Monsters, a major new work featuring ballerina Sylvie Guillem, with additional choreography by Taiwanese choreographer Lin Hwai Min premiered at Sadler’s Wells in September 2006.  Another of his most recent projects is Variations, a collaboration with London Sinfonietta to celebrate the 70th birthday of Steve Reich, which premiered in Cologne in March 2006, and toured to Europe and America. Akram Khan was also invited by Kylie Minogue in 2006 to choreograph a section of her new Showgirl concert which opened in Australia in November 2006, and toured to the UK (London and Manchester) in January 2007.  

A new work, bahok, a unique collaboration with the National Ballet of China and choreographed by Akram Khan, had its world premiere in Beijing in January 2008 and its UK premiere in March at the Liverpool Playhouse. bahok is currently touring worldwide. Akram Khan is married and lives in London.

2. Juliette Binoche
Co-director and performer

Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche is one of the most celebrated actresses in France, where she is referred to affectionately as “La Binoche”. Born in Paris to a sculptor/theatre director and an actress, she studied at the National School of Dramatic Art of Paris and after graduation became a stage actress, occasionally taking small parts in French feature films. She first earned recognition in 1985 in Jean-Luc Godard’s controversial Hail Mary (Je vous salue, Marie). Her position as a French film star was further confirmed by her acclaimed performance in André Téchiné’s Rendez-Vous.

Her international breakthrough came in 1988 when she played Tereza in Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which was followed by another widely acclaimed lead role in Les Amants du Pont Neuf directed by Léos Carax in 1991. Another film which brought her to a wider audience was Louis Malle’s Damage in 1992. This was followed by the lead role in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours: Blue. Juliette Binoche returned to the screen in 1995 with The Horseman on the Roof (Le Hussard sur Le Toit). She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1996 for her role in Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. In 2000 she starred in the hit film Chocolat, a role she prepared for by learning to make chocolate at a popular Paris sweet shop. The film was a huge success and she was nominated for Best Actress awards across the globe. She followed this with Code Unknown (Code Inconnu), Michael Haneke’s film about intersecting lives, and worked with the same director in 2005 on Hidden (Caché). Other recent films include Abel Ferrara’s Mary opposite Matthew Modine and Forest Whitaker (2005); Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering opposite Jude Law (2006), and Hou Hsao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon (Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge). Her most recently completed film is Summer Hours (L’Heure d’été) directed by Olivier Assayas. Juliette Binoche lives in France with her two children.

3. Anish Kapoor
Set designer

Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay in 1954 and has lived in London since the early 70s when he studied at Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea School of Art Design.

Over the past 20 years he has exhibited extensively in London and all over the world. His solo shows have included venues such as Kunsthalle Basel, Tate Gallery and Hayward Gallery in London, Reina Sofia in Madrid, CAPC in Bordeaux and most recently Haus der Kunst in Munich. He has also participated internationally in many group shows including the Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Royal Academy and Serpentine Gallery in London, Documenta IX in Kassel, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Jeu de Paume and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Anish Kapoor was awarded the ‘Premio Duemila’ at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the Turner Prize in 1991, an Honorary Fellowship at the London Institute in 1997, and was made a CBE in 2003. He is represented by the Lisson Gallery, London, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York and Galleria Continua and Galleria Massimo Minini, Italy.

4. Philip Sheppard
Composer

Philip Sheppard trained in Cello and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, specialising in contemporary music. He worked closely with Hans Werner Henze, Sir Michael Tippett and Luciano Berio during this time, as a founder member of The Kreutzer String  Quartet. Whilst a student, he made weekly appearances at The Spitz nightclub, playing entirely improvised concerts, sometimes featuring his Piano Quintet – formed with Keith Tippett. He collaborated with pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who encouraged him to move away from a conventional musical environment, and pursue his composition. He went  on to pioneer electro-acoustic improvisation, joining the Smith Quartet  and appearing regularly with the London Sinfonietta. After completing a Fellowship, he was made a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music where he is now a Senior Lecturer.

His early solo albums, The Glass Cathedral and The Diver in the Crypt, featured new compositions devised for site-specific performance. The albums received rave reviews and are regularly played on Radio 3. The tracks feature a specially commissioned electric cello that has become a cornerstone of many of Philip Sheppard’s compositions. The albums attracted the attention of Scott Walker, who invited him to play at his Southbank Centre Meltdown Festival.  They collaborated again on Pulp’s album We Love Life, with Jarvis Cocker, and after that on Walker’s critically acclaimed album The Drift. He has also arranged songs for Cocker’s solo album Jarvis, David Bowie and Suzanne Vega.

His first orchestral soundtrack was commissioned for the documentary feature, In the Shadow of the Moon, which won major awards at the Boulder, Florida, Indianapolis and Sedona film festivals, as well as the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The soundtrack was released on Lakeshore Records.

Philip Sheppard regularly collaborates with James Lavelle and UNKLE. They have recently written and produced the forthcoming album End Titles....Stories For Film (with Gavin Clark, Josh Homme, Chris Goss and Pablo Clements), following the success of the recent album War Stories. Sheppard has been commissioned to write and produce the music for the  Olympic Handover Ceremony at this year’s Beijing Olympics, and to arrange and direct the British national Anthem for these events. He has produced the music for two recent BBC TV live events: The Manchester Passion and The Liverpool Nativity. These have won numerous awards, including the BBC award for Best Music Production of the year, which was awarded to Philip Sheppard, together with the writer Stephen Powell. He has completed a suite for piano, strings and electronics that forms the soundtrack for Robert Winston’s new series, Medical Frontiers, to be shown on BBC1 in the autumn. He is also currently writing a set of pieces for Viol Consort, to be recorded on location, that will form the soundtrack for Dr David Starkey’s forthcoming series on Henry VIII.

Philip Sheppard is proud to have had a long and fruitful professional relationship with Akram Khan. He first joined Khan as an improvising cellist in the Kathak projects Third Catalogue and Ronin, collaborating with Hanif Kureishi and the AK Company for The God of Small Tales. In 2006, he was commissioned to write Sacred Monsters for Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem. He toured with the production until the summer of 2007, his final performance being at the Herod Atticus Theatre in the shadow of the Parthenon.

5. Michael Hulls
Lighting Designer

Michael Hulls first worked with Akram Khan on the pieces Fix and Rush and has also previously collaborated on a dance piece with Anish Kapoor. Trained in dance and theatre at Dartington College of Arts and in 1992, Michael Hulls was awarded a bursary by the Arts Council to attend dance lighting workshops with Jennifer Tipton in New York and Paris. Since then he has worked exclusively within dance and is best known for his long term collaboration with the choreographer Russell Maliphant, particularly their recent works made for Sylvie Guillem. Amongst other major awards, their works have twice won both the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production and The South Bank Show Dance Award. In 2006 Channel Four commissioned Light and Dance, a documentary about their collaboration. Michael Hulls has also regularly worked with Javier de Frutos, Jonathan Burrows, Laurie Booth and with Meg Stuart, on her works for Deutsche Oper Ballett, and for Mikhail Baryshnikov. In 2001 Michael Hulls created an installation, ShadowSpace, at the Ikon Gallery and in 2003 was awarded a Wingate Scholarship for research into lighting design. In 2004 he was made an Associate Artist at The Place Theatre and in 2006 was nominated for the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. He is currently working on a collaboration between Robert Lepage, Russell Maliphant and Sylvie Guillem.

6. Kei Ito
Costume designer

Kei Ito started working in Tokyo as a graphic designer and then switched to fashion design, first studying at the Women’s College of Art, Tokyo, and then Central St Martins, London. For the last 14 years Kei Ito has run her own fashion and costume studio and in 1998 she established an accessory label called ‘Always Sky Above’. Her exhibitions include Ruthin Craft Centre (1999), Decadence, Crafts Council (1999), On Paper, Crafts Council (2000), Double Vision, Japan Embassy (2003), Import Export, British Council, V&A (2004), Centro de Artesania e Deseno, Spain (2005), Avantcraft, Spain (2007), Crafting Beauty Showcase, British Museum (2007) , Supernatural, Queens Nails Annex, San Francisco (2007), and The Fabric of Cultures, Museum of  Craft & Folk Art, CA (2008). Costume designs have been produced for Yolande Snaith Theatre Dance, Calypso Theatre Company Dublin, Temenos Project, Story Tellers Theatre Company, Akram Khan, Zero Degrees (2005), Variation for vibes, strings & pianos (2006), and for Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem (Sacred Monsters).

7. Guy Cools
Dramaturg

After having trained as a dramaturg, Guy Cools became involved with the new developments in dance in Flanders from the 1980s, initially as a dance critic and, from 1990 onwards, as theatre and dance director of Arts Centre Vooruit in Ghent. In that capacity he was responsible for a large number of co-productions and collaborations with a variety of international dance companies. As vice-president of the Dance Council he contributed to the cultural policy towards dance of the Flemish Community. He curated dance events in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Venice and Montréal. He is still working as an artistic consultant for, amongst others, Place des Arts-Montréal. He left Vooruit to dedicate himself full time to production dramaturgy with, amongst others, Koen Augustijnen (Les Ballets C. de la B.), Sara Wookey (Amsterdam-LA), Lia Haraki (Cyprus), Daniele Desnoyers (Montréal), Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Sylvie Guillem (London), and to return to his old passions of teaching, writing, giving workshops, lecturing and publishing in Belgium, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and Greece. Since 2004, he lives in Montréal, Canada.

8. Su-Man Hsu
Rehearsal Director and Dance Coach (Juliette Binoche)

Su-Man was born in Taiwan. She studied dance at the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei, continuing her dance education at the school of Pina Bausch – the Folkwang Hochscule in Essen, Germany. Her first professional engagement was with the Ulmer Ballet after which she joined the world reknowned Belgian dance company Rosas. She was a company member for five years. In her last year with Rosas she became the company rehearsal director. On finishing her dance career she undertook extensive professional training as a shiatsu therapist. She augmented her training with certificated studies in Pilates (mat work) and Japanese Facial massage. She has a very busy practice in London and a very illustrious client list. In 2005 she was listed in the London Evening Standard as one of the five top facials in London. She started working with Juliette Binoche as her body therapist in 2006. In 2007 she was asked by Akram Khan to spend a year training Juliette Binoche to dance in preparation for in-i.  She continues to work for this production as rehearsal director.  

9. Fabiana Piccioli
Technical Director

Fabiana Piccioli studied Philosophy at Univerity La Sapienza di Roma. From 1999 to 2002 she worked as a dancer in Rome and Brussels. She was then Technical Coordinator and Production Manager at the Romaeuropa Festival from 2002 to 2004. She joined Akram Khan Company as Technical Manager in 2005. Fabiana Piccioli was the Lighting Designer for two Akram Khan Company productions, Variations for Vibes, Strings nd Pianos – a collaboration between Akram Khan Company and the London Sinfonietta (2006), and bahok, a collaboration with the National Ballet of China (2008). She also co-designed the set for bahok.

10. Nicolas Faure
Sound Designer

Nicolas Faure studied wave mechanics, acoustic and techniques of sound broadcasting at the university of La Metare Saint Etienne. From 2004 to 2008, he worked as Sound Director at Les Nuits de Fourviere Festival in Lyon, France. Nicolas Faure has previously worked with Akram Khan as a sound engineer for his shows zero degrees and Sacred Monsters.

11. Sander Loonen
Technical Co-ordinator

Sander Loonen started working in theatre as a lamp-cleaner in 1991 and ever since then has been working as a Technician and Lighting Designer. In 1997 he was a trainee in the Rotterdamse Schouwburg in the Netherlands, leaving six years later as one of the in-house Lighting Designers. After two years working in Brazil, he returned to Holland to be one of the founding members of DENZO, a company that provides technical support for art-related projects. He has worked with Meg Stuart/damaged goods, Emio Greco, PC, Waterhuis, Peter Sonneveld, and many other companies. Sander Loonen has worked with Akram Khan Company since 2007. He co-designed the setand was a technical co-ordinator on Akram Khan’s latest ensemble project, bahok, a collaboration with the National Ballet of China (2008).

12. Farooq Chaudhry
Producer

Farooq Chaudhry was born in Pakistan. He graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1986. As a professional dance artist he worked in a variety of dance mediums in various European countries, the highlight being his time as a company member of the Belgian modern dance company Rosas during the mid nineties. In 1988 he received an Asian Achievement Award for his work as a dancer. He retired from dancing in 1999 after which he completed an MA in Arts Management from City University in London. As a freelance dance manager he teamed up with Akram Khan in 1999. A year later they co-founded the Akram Khan Company. Farooq Chaudhry has played a key role in forming innovative business models for Akram Khan’s artistic ambitions as well as offering creative support during the development of Akram Khan’s projects; he is currently the company producer. He is a “project champion” for Arts Council England’s Cultural Leadership programme and a member of Dance UK’s Board. He was recently acknowledged in a new publication by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a list of the world’s top hundred cultural actors and entrepreneurs.