In every culture on earth, dance is a physical, joyfulform of expression and communication. It is, in a way, the worlds most basic common language. My guest today epitomises the ability of dance to cross borders of time and space. Akram khan is british by birth, bangladeshi by Family Heritage and now globally renowned as one of the great contemporary dancers and choreographers. The performances weave together influences from east and west, past and present. How would he define his dance . Akram khan, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you, welcome. Seems to me so many of the great professional dancers have been raised in one very strict discipline, one cultural tradition. That isnt quite true of you, is it . Er, no. Iwas. You know, i was born and brought up in london so already i was exposed to many, many different cultural activities from very different backgrounds, but my mother wanted me to learn something from her roots, and not just language, because language was very crucial to her because of the independence of bangladesh. The movement originally started for the war, to fight between East Pakistan and. So the bengali identity, bangladeshi identity was hugely important. Did you learn bengali, the language . Idid. She refused to speak to me in english because she knew id learn english in school, because i was born and brought up here. So she wanted me to be in touch with her language, but also her culture, something that was classical and close to her culture. Classical indian dancing, the right thing, so thats what she kind of forced me, pushed me into. This would be the kathak tradition. Kathak, exactly, north indian classical dance. So, as a kid, you were living in south london, your dad running a restaurant, but were you sort of told that you would be going to dance lessons, kathak traditional dance lessons . Yeah, it was more of a bribe. If i went, then i would get something at the end of it. Because i was. Of course, when you are exposed to so many Different Things i was heavily into Michael Jackson, i loved. How did your mother feel about that . She was all right. She was ok. Is it true that you won a prize at school for the best version of thriller, the Michael Jackson routine . Yeah, it was two things. It was michaeljackson, i did a routine, and five star, which is a group in that period that i used to love. They used to be inspired by michaeljackson. So, yeah, i won something, a competition. I dont know if we are talking ten, 11 years old, but you are becoming a sort of fusion, in a way, of different influences. I wonder whether, as you progressed through adolescence and you became very keen on different forms of dancing, whether there was a tension in you about which direction to go, to follow . Yes, there was, but the tension comes from my community and social construct of my parents community, because academics was very important for them. You know, they were recently independent as a country, they felt education was the way forward and dance was a hobby. Up to this day, my community are great and wonderful and supportive, but i do get the occasional, what do you do as a realjob . Yes and thats ok. Yes. No. Studied mythology, greek mythology, hindu mythology. She was fascinated by stories, narratives, and she kind of coached me into it. She kind of guided me into it from a young age. Many people around the world will probably be familiar with the Billy Elliott story of a kid from a Northern Industrial town, a mining sort of town, who is a brilliant natural dancer and then has to struggle with himself and his family and his community about getting to the right sort of dance school to explore his passion. Yeah. That isnt quite what youre telling me. It wasnt that sort of having to escape. No. First of all, i dont. Im trying to be very honest. Im not naturally talented. What i am. I have one talent, and that is, when i get obsessed with something, i commit to it in a very extreme way. I can go into my parents garage, which i did, at the. Just after gcses, i was lost for a while, and i went into my parents garage and they thought i was at college. So, for a year, i was hiding out in my dads garage. Doing what . Training. In indian classical dance. And thats my talent. I did like ten hours a day, from morning. Entirely in secret, private, just for yourself . Yeah, that was my form of escape. Ijust wanted to get really good at it. I became obsessed by it. I was fascinated by kathak, north indian classical dance. And yet, you know, if we fast forward a little bit to get to where your career begins to take off, you actually entered a very different environment. You went to one of the uks top Contemporary Dance Schools and then you started getting work, which was beginning to make your name, not in the street kathak tradition, but actually finding your own dance language, which combines some eastern traditional expression with a lot of very contemporary, edgy, current western dance. Yeah. I call it confusion. People used to call their work fusion, but i prefer to call it confusion, because really my body was very confused at the time. I think, out of that confusion, you start to search for clarity, for your voice. Your identity. Yeah. Which youre exploring actually through dance. Yeah. But it could have been writing or music or whatever. But, for you, you were very much sort of autobiographical, in a way. A lot of my works autobiographical, yeah. I like to touch. Theres a lot of questions i would like to explore that went through my childhood. As i said, michaeljackson wasnt the only person. I loved charlie chaplin, i loved fred astaire. Buster keaton, muhammad ali, bruce lee all these people were my superheroes. You brought ali with you. Yeah, i thought hardtalk, muhammad ali. Its a great cue, actually, because we want to show everybody a little bit of your dance, some of the stuff youve done. Perhaps your most autobiographical work was desh, which took you in a way back to bangladesh. Lets just enjoy 30 seconds or so of this