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da:ns fest 2015: Akram Khan, Israel Galvan go mano a mano

SINGAPORE —On one side, you had Israel Galvan, the contemporary flamenco maestro from Spain. On the other, Akram Khan, the kathak-trained swirling dance magician from the UK. It’s the ultimate mano a mano dance face-off that’s enough to make you shout “Ole!”

Torobaka's Akram Khan (left) and Israel Galvan. Photo: Jean Louise Fernandez

Torobaka's Akram Khan (left) and Israel Galvan. Photo: Jean Louise Fernandez

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SINGAPORE —On one side, you had Israel Galvan, the contemporary flamenco maestro from Spain. On the other, Akram Khan, the kathak-trained swirling dance magician from the UK. It’s the ultimate mano a mano dance face-off that’s enough to make you shout “Ole!”

The show’s title, Torobaka, is a play on the Spanish words for bull (toro) and cow (vaca), animals that symbolise the two dancer’s cultural heritage (Khan is of Bangladeshi descent).

The rivalry may be friendly in this humour-laden show, and the manly headbutts are done with affection, but the intensity is anything but slack: In their very own bullring of light, two dancers from different backgrounds mash and clash styles, accompanied by the similarly mashing and clashing music from both camps.

It’s almost elemental: The fiery machismo of Galvan against the fluid grace of Khan, the groundedness of the former against the lightness of the latter. Galvan the highly-strung showman, Khan the shaman in a trance.

One delightfully gets to see them in action as individuals. Galvan is a rockstar, infusing flamenco with a Johnny Rotten-meets-James Brown attitude. He screams, jumps to the wings for no obvious reason, and even rushes at the tabla player to interrupt his playing. You can imagine him having groupies.

The more Zen-like Khan’s solo sees him wearing flamenco boots on his hands as he’s down on his knees, barefoot. His hands go wild as if the shoes are possessed but when they’re taken off, expressive finger-work fly.

It’s not hard to see the reason behind this fascinating collaboration. The similarities between flamenco and kathak are there: The rhythm-based stamping, the vocally expressive music accompaniments, the grand gestures of the arms, the intricate forms of the fingers. But these have already been filtered through the two dancers’ visions so it’s not so much a purist’s notion of a “fusion” event, which makes it even more interesting seeing how, in their duets, the two would would attempt to try the other’s style while also acknowledging the difference (Galvan, the cheekier of the two, would jokingly mock Khan’s movements).

But Torobaka is not just about the two dancers but the musicians themselves (the wholistic approach in both dance forms is yet another example of flamenco and katha’s similarity): All four — traditional Indian percussionist B C Manjunath to Spanish rhythm-clapper Bobote, and singers Christine Leboutte and David Azurza — were put in the spotlight, too, in this very enjoyable piece.

 

Torobaka runs until tonight (Oct 17), 8pm, at the Esplanade Theatre. Tickets from SISTIC. For more info on the festival, visit http://www.dansfestival.com/2015/

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