Sidi Larbi Speaks

By Victoria Looseleaf

One of the new crop of choreographic ‘It’ boys – along with Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon – Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, 35, is also a mensch. Thus were we honored to interview him last June, before a work he made for the Dutch National Ballet (as part of the always fabulous Holland Festival), premiered. (Click here for our LA Times Dispatch From Amsterdam.) Admittedly, we were jet-lagged and since holding the flash mic aloft is also no easy feat (it has a built-in computer chip and is très, très heavy), we just let Larbi, well, talk…and talk…and talk.

But with his intriguing background – born in Antwerp, Belgium to a Moroccan father and Flemish mother – and his being in demand around the world (click here to read our LA Times 2010 review of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s performance of Larbi’s Orbo Novo), his conversation careened from growing up being influenced by Pina Bausch, Renaissance paintings and the music videos of Prince and Janet Jackson, to still being in awe of singer/songwriter Kate Bush. Larbi has also collaborated with other dancer/choreographers, including the celebrated Akram Khan (in photo at right, from zero degrees), as well as being the subject of a documentary, Sutra, a dance work he made with the Shaolin monks. (Click here to read our story on Dance Camera West, which screened Sutra, as well as Mike Figgis’ raw, ravishing The Co(te)lette Film last June, then click here for more on Figgis.)

But we digress: While most of Larbi’s musings have been relegated to The Report’s archives, our edited conversation is still sure to stimulate: Since Larbi formed a dance/theater troupe last year, Eastman – a literal translation of his last name, Cherkaoui, which in Arabic means “the man coming from the east” – we wanted to highlight the troupe’s visit to the Irvine Barclay Theatre this month. Hence, our KUSC chat is primarily centered around the Barclay engagement and Eastman’s West Coast premiere of Babel. The third part of a trilogy, the Guardian of London described Babel as, “The most fiercely resonant dance theater of the decade.”

Click here for our KUSC interview and then head to the Barclay 10/15 to experience Eastman’s Babel in the flesh. Alas: Larbi, he of the über-elastic body and silky limbs, will not be performing. But 13 dancers will, along with five live taiko drummers and singers, whose lyrical Indian tunes and Arabic laments promise to bring it all home.