Aakash Odedra Company Presents Songs of the Bulbul, Birmingham Hippodrome, 08 April 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

Photo Credit: Angela Grabowska

Aakash Odedra Company Presents Songs of the Bulbul, Birmingham Hippodrome, 08 April 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“An intriguing classical and contemporary dance experience.”

The story is simple yet poignant: a fable about a captured nightingale that sings ever more beautifully as its captivity becomes harsher. Choreographer, Rani Khanam takes a simple and direct approach to dance storytelling, so that all the familiar tropes of mythology land clearly. The nightingale’s joy in its freedom, its captivity, its anguish, the transformation of anguish into beauty, and its death are all clearly laid out.

But this simple narrative approach gives the piece room to then explore the inevitable multiplicity of meanings behind the myth, and how it resonates in a deeper way with the human experience. The story becomes one of the capacity people have to find beauty in the midst of horror, and freedom of spirit and imagination in captivity. The nightingale’s death becomes a moment of release and transfiguration.

The fusion of classical and contemporary dance is used to telling effect, with sharp contrasts between the tight and detailed, and the ecstatic and explosive. The increasing constraint of the nightingale’s imprisonment is cleverly explored through the use of movements that throw the energy back into the body to create an inward spiral of constriction.

The set is uncluttered. A crescent of candles, lengths of gnarled wood hanging from the lighting grid, red petals – lots of red petals! Each element is beautifully thought-out and, as the story progresses, they all take on a variety of significances. Texture and detail are provided through imaginative use of lighting effects.

A simple white robe with a voluminous flowing skirt accentuates dancer, Aakash Odedra’s more exuberant movements. The robe is also used representationally, as the egg from which the nightingale hatches; as wings, as a shroud et al.

Indeed, all the elements of the staging and choreography work together beautifully to create a rich, layered and deeply moving piece of dance theatre.

That said, there are some drawbacks. The score is heavy, lush, and – at times - given booming electronic treatment. It has a cinematic, epic quality that seems a little out of step with the intimacy of the dance experience.

The opening section is comprised of a number of sequences that develop from the small and still to the large and expansive. However, this does become a bit repetitious.

Overall, however, this is an impressive achievement. Odedra certainly deserves the highest praise for his technical accomplishment, and for managing to sustain such elevated levels of emotional intensity through such a lengthy (55mins) solo dance.

Creatives

Dancer – Aaskash Odedre

Choreographer – Rani Khanam

Composer – Rushil Ranjan

Designer – Emanuele Salamanca

Lighting – Fabiana Piccioli

Costume – Kanika Thakur

Music performed by the Manchester Camerata conducted by Melvin Tay