movement as a rorschach

A selection from Kinfolk interview with choreographer, Akron Khan.

Your 2010 work, Vertical Road, which was inspired by traditions in Sufi Islam and the poetry of Rumi, meditates on the difficulties of wrestling oneself from the horizontal road of earthly time and living along the emotional, transcendent "vertical" path. Has that latter road become even harder to follow of late?

Our ancient myths are based on gods. Now we've replaced gods with humans because we're able to create technology and use it to our advantage. But I think that technology will replace us when it figures out that it doesn't need us any longer, and then it will be the new god.
In filming a new documentary, Can We Live With Robots?, for the UK's Channel 4, I've asked people who work in the field: What makes us human? I think we need to return to this question because we're so numb today, which is probably why we're unhappy. It's a very dramatic time, but we're not feeling it. We're living in a moment where governments employ shock treatments at an epic scale, and people are occupied and made numb while massive changes occur. We're unable to move forward or backward in any way

What are the benefits of change and transformation?

All change is violence because we are very accustomed to habit. When you create a ritual by doing something again and again, it - and you - slowly become absent, because it's familiar. You move away from the present, where you should be living. We must continue evolving. This isn't about changing governments; that's not enough. Every individual must transform inn order to survive, and this is violent because anything uncomfortable is violent to your senses. And you never know what you're going to change into. Even when you plan it, it's unknown.