The water is rising. Cities have been abandoned. People must leave everything behind in search for dry land. Climate catastrophe has arrived and the message is clear: humans are to blame.
In Akram Khan’s ‘Jungle Book Reimagined’, Mowgli is a climate refugee. After losing her family after falling off a raft – as told via a stunning line-drawn animation by Yeast Culture – she washes up in a ravaged London, ruled by gangs of animals who live among the detritus of the abandoned city. The animals, escaped from zoos, circuses and testing labs, suffer from PTSD from their past lives in the human world. A lopsided London skyline sinks into the ever-rising water.
But after the striking opening section, there’s an elephant in the room, and I don’t just mean Colonel Hathi. It’s the ever-present voiceover. I get what Khan is trying to do here. We all know that the original ‘Jungle Book’ – both the Kipling story and the Disney film versions – is for children. Running over the Easter holidays, Khan’s show is advertised as being for ages eight-plus, and this is dance-theatre, not straight-up abstract contemporary. But the blend of elements felt tonally off-kilter. The voice acting is cartoonish, with the over-laboured dialogue reminded me of a kid’s audiobook. Khan’s efforts to make a production suitable for all ages feels muddled, resulting in a show that simultaneously comes across as too juvenile for adults and too advanced for younger children.
However, if you can filter out the talking, you’re left with a visually beautiful, sometimes profound and mostly absorbing show. Holly Vallis is a wonderful Bagheera, moving with an animal-like realness. The sharpness in her shoulder and head movements bring brilliant detail to each word and intonation in her character’s speech. I enjoyed watching her playfully tussle with Baloo, played by Tom Davis-Dunn, with whom she had great chemistry.
The staging and props are gorgeous. In the climax, a rippling white silk sheet imitating water is impressive. Kaa, the hypnotising snake, is playfully imagined as a series of cardboard boxes with a pair of glowing green eyes. The dissected snake body brings a fluidity and fun wriggliness to the snake’s movement. And the cardboard boxes are more than just clever set pieces, they’re also the company’s solution to touring sustainably, as the minimal set is made from leftover boxes provided by theatres. The rest of the set is empty, being made up instead by Yeast Culture’s delightful animations.
Alongside its serious message, ‘Jungle Book reimagined’ is funny in parts, too. Baloo, who was once a dancing bear, carries most of the comedy with over-the-top physical theatre and an exaggerated Eastern European accent. For the older audience members, there’s an amusing moment comparing the hooting monkeys to British politicians. The band of cronyish monkeys meet in an abandoned parliament, a dishevelled protest sign reading ‘democracy’ in the background. The Bandar-log channels John Bercow, yelling a guttural ‘orderrrr’.
Akram Khan is clearly trying to tell us something with this bleak tale of climate doom. Ecological disaster suits his kathak-grounded dance vocabulary. Is the idea that we’re going to destroy civilization in a flurry of floods and fires a bit much for an ostensibly children’s production? Maybe, but it is also true. And there’s a positive message about garnering a mutual respect between humans and nature in there too: flashbacks to Mowgli’s childhood via animation remind us we need to respect nature, not control it. ‘We are just visitors,’ Mowgli’s mother tells her. Unlike the Bandar-log, who is desperate to be human, people could learn from the animals.
‘Jungle Book Reimagined’ isn’t a masterpiece, but it is contemporary dance with mass appeal. It’s entertaining, inventive and accessible, with an important message at its core, and Khan’s choreography is powerful as ever.