Desh

Directed performed and created by Akram Khan
with Akram Khan Company
Visual Design (Set and Costume) by Tim Yip
Music Composition by Jocelyn Pook
Lighting Design by Michael Hulls


DESH is a contemporary solo and the most personal work to date from celebrated choreographer and performer, Akram Khan. DESH meaning ‘homeland’ in Bengali, draws multiple tales of land, nation, resistance and convergence into the body and voice of one man trying to find his balance in an unstable world.

Moving between Britain and Bangladesh, Khan weaves threads of memory, experience and myth into a surreal world of surprising connection. At once intimate and epic, DESH explores fragility in the face of natural forces, and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the rhythms of labour, in dream and story, and in transformation and survival.

For this production, Khan teams up with Oscar-winning visual artist Tim Yip, fellow Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist lighting designer Michael Hulls, writer and poet Karthika Nair and Olivier award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook.




the sets by Tim Yip, the art director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, are eye-wideningly beautiful.

—The Guardian

The design, by Tim Yip, best known for his work on the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” is as important as the dance here, and it meshes the virtual and the real to startling ends.

—The New York Times