Creature

After their triumphant Giselle, choreographer Akram Khan and his dream team return to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen for a large-scale ballet. Creature takes place in a dilapidated research centre on the North Pole. There, a military brigade subjects a mysterious being to a daring study. The creature is tested for its mental and physical adaptability to extreme cold, isolation and homesickness – crucial properties for the human colonisation of unexplored terrain on our planet and beyond. Creature is an unearthly story about exploitation and human boundaries, with echoes of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Akram Khan's impressive choreography floats over a merciless dark score by Vincenzo Lamagna and a pared down scenography by Tim Yip. The result is a monumental study of abandonment and isolation, outsidership and the desire for connectedness.