At home with dancer Akram Khan
Akram Khan. Photo: Julien Benhamou
For the first in a new series, #CloveAtHome, we asked the globally renowned performer and dance choreographer, and founder of the Akram Khan Company, how he’s spending his time during the coronavirus lockdown.
Khan: ‘I’m reading all of Arundhati Roy’s response to this moment of global crisis’
CLOVE: What books have you been reading during this period at home?
AKRAM KHAN: I have been engrossed in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) by Amitav Ghosh. I’m also following and reading all of Arundhati Roy’s response to this moment of global crisis.
CLOVE: What music has kept you going?
AK: Mostly classical Indian vocal music by Rashid Khan and TM Krishna, but I’ve also been listening to music by Armenian composer and musician Tigran Hamasyan.
CLOVE: Are you listening to any podcasts?
AK: I am saving them all up to listen to next month – but that’s if schools reopen. I have two small kids, so they are a continuous, open podcast in themselves. And I just can’t find their off button.
“I have two small kids, so they are a continuous, open podcast in themselves. And I just can’t find their off button”
— Akram Khan 
Khan: ‘I watched The Joker (2019) for the third time’
CLOVE: Have you enjoyed any films in particular?
AK: Yes, I recently watched The Joker (2019) for the third time.
CLOVE: And any TV shows?
AK: I try not to watch TV series because they can become addictive, so I mostly watch documentaries. Recently, I watched For Sama (2019) by Waad al-Kateab, which was an unbearable and yet insightful view of the incredible strength, patience and fragility shown during the Syrian conflict.
CLOVE: How have you been keeping yourself mentally, emotionally and physically well at home?
AK: By surrendering to a solid structure – a different one to pre-covid-19, but still a structure that helps me navigate the days and weeks constructively during this moment of lockdown. Within that structure I have incorporated my daily physical practice. I spend four hours every day in my small studio at the back of my garden. It’s a sort of safe haven for me – a place of refuge where I can practice, reflect and respond.
“I spend four hours every day in my small studio at the back of my garden. It’s a sort of safe haven for me”
— Akram Khan 
Akram Khan in Xenos (2018). Photo: Jean Louis Fernandez
CLOVE: How has lockdown changed the way you work?
AK: Immensely, because the work that we do in dance is so much about people being in the same space – sharing, searching, developing. Now I have to work remotely, so my company has started an online programme to stay connected to other artists, and provide some sort of support. I have also released a series of short stories narrated by me and my daughter for this moment.
CLOVE: How do you think it will change you and your approach to your work – and life – in the long term?
AK: I am not sure yet. Until we are out of this fully, we won’t know how or what to adapt to, and if I had an answer now, it would just be mostly speculative.
