Zero Degrees

Zero degrees started as a desire of Sidi Larbi  Cherkaoui to dance a duet with British-Bengali choreographer and dancer  Akram Khan. Both are sons of Islamic families brought up in Europe, and  both draw upon this meeting of cultures, combining complex Indian kathak  dance with the speed and precision of contemporary movements.

Inviting Antony Gormley for the scenography and Nitin Sawhney for the live performed music; zero degrees  became a place of transformation. Inspired by the place where one thing  morphs into another, the grey zone between one thing and the next, the  degrees where water becomes ice, the line where life becomes death. Zero degrees  follows Cherkaoui and Khan on a journey to seek the reference point,  the source, the ‘0’ at life’s core. Inspired by their own dual  identities, the two search for this middle point through polar  opposites; becoming/death, light/dark, chaos/order. Zero degrees talks  about borders and how blurry they actually are.

With only two lifelike dummies, copies of Cherkaoui and Khan, the  emptiness on stage permits the audience to see many symbols of division  and unity within the choreography. The dummies are like alter egos,  sometimes they are oppressors, sometimes guards or dead bodies.

Zero degrees is a performance about the fragility of a human life,  about yin and yang. The piece has won a Helpmann Award in Australia and  was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in the U.K.

Source: Eastman

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