TOROBAKA

When two firebrands meet on stage, and the risk-takers in question are Israel Galván and Akram Khan, you know something ground-breaking is going to emerge from the mix...

Israel Galván is an award-winning Flamenco dancer and choreographer who has committed himself to taking his art in new directions. In turn, the charismatic and inventive Akram Khan has worked tirelessly to explore and break down the boundaries between Kathak and contemporary dance.

The roots of their techniques go back centuries, their traditions open up a vast fan of cultures, and yet they fall into step with astonishing ease. For there is an invisible thread, a shared lineage, which connects these two traditions with their foot stamps and circular hand movements, their abrupt rhythmic changes and music produced in part by the dancer’s body.

The two choreographers seek to transcend the obvious and reach the point at which, together, they can break the moulds of their respective cultures from within and create, in an explosion of dance and live music, a performance in which two bodies become one but retain their own idioms as they do so. A production that will delight audiences with its intensity, its precision and the profound experience of freedom it imparts.

Watch a web documentary about TOROBAKA.
(Co-commissioned by Sadler's Wells and the BBC/Arts Council England digital project The Space, this interactive film created and directed by the talented Maxime Dos offers a valuable insight into the creation of the piece.)