Dancer and choreographer Mavin Khoo will be bringing his concept of physical motion and presence to the Manoel Theatre in an edgy production titled Akasha. He tells Rachel Agius about chance meetings, hybrid identity and casting light onto the imperceptible.

Set between worlds and between lives, Akasha – which in Sanskrit means ether – seeks to explore the interactions between energies, souls even, giving them a physical interpretation.

I often tell my students not to fear poverty

It’s an interpretation that connects mortality and immortality, heaven and earth, life and death… and yet, it is not philosophy we are talking about, but dance. For choreographer Mavin Khoo, the two are closely related and this new production he is bringing to the Manoel Theatre confirms it.

“The idea for Akasha developed while I was backstage during a production,” explains Khoo. It was about five years ago, during my last performance at the Manoel Theatre, that I became aware of a sense of these intangible energies coming together. I knew I wanted to create a piece about the muses that exist in theatres.”

Of course, the Manoel Theatre’s history lends itself well to an element of mystery and presence, however, it was to be some time before Khoo returned to the project.

For a while, the seeds of that idea went untended as touring and other commitments occupied Khoo’s time and energies. Eventually, the proposal for Akasha came to light once again and was taken on by the Manoel Theatre itself, the original source of inspiration, thus bringing the production full circle from birth to performance.

This serendipitous turn of events seems very much in tune with the progress of Khoo’s career, which has gone from strength to strength over the past years.

“I strongly believe in being in the right place at the right time,” he says. “Success depends quite a bit on luck.”

Luck has indeed smiled on the choreographer, though of course talent and passion have helped it along.

He explains how, on several occasions, he found himself “in the presence of greatness”, as he calls it. Whether it was a gifted performer or a great teacher, Khoo acknowledges that these unplanned meetings shaped his life and his career profoundly.

Having left home in Malaysia at the age of 10, Khoo has since then lived, studied and worked across the world. Each pit stop contributed significantly to his professional style and granted him unique insight into the complexity of the notion of identity.

“My time in London was integral, I would say, to shaping a particular sensibility, particularly towards the idea of hybridity,” Khoo says.

Hybridity, particularly in Malta, is an important aspect of identity. However, Khoo is more interested in the end product than in the separate national components.

“Breaking identity down into different nationalities creates separation, isolated individuals standing next to each other, much like in London,” he explains.

He believes that the sum of those parts is much greater than the whole.

This also accounts for Khoo’s insistence on Maltese performers for Maltese productions – it is as much about cultural interpretation as it is about skill and training. His own initial training in India formed the groundwork for his relationship with dance and the making of a crucial distinction.

“It shaped my approach to actually being an artist, as opposed to having a craft and being a dancer,” Khoo says. The former, he explains, is cerebral as well as physical, a way of thinking as well as doing. It steps outside the boundaries and limitations of the individual. The latter is solely a physical skill, a matter of training and practice that, once the job is done, is shelved until it is needed next.

“One can be a very good dancer – this is a good skill to have – but it limits the total embodiment of art. Aspiring towards becoming an artist breaks through those boundaries,” he says. “Because of this, I often tell my students not to fear poverty.”

While dismissing the idea that artists must be poor as a cliché, he states that by thinking solely in terms of financial gain or stability, the art – that ephemeral, elegant combination of inspiration and hard work – becomes limited by the individual. The need to express goes beyond the singular person.

“Through teaching I’ve come to realise that it is not about me. As individuals we are tiny, almost insignificant. We are just molecules that represent something greater; it’s about dance with a capital D,” Khoo explains.

Khoo translates these concepts into reality with his work at the University of Malta’s department of dance. With the department now into its third year, the choreographer is positively ecstatic with the direction it is taking in both undergraduate and post-graduate training.

“The combination of practice and dance theory is so on the ball with developments in the study of dance. The focus now is on training the thinking dancer, or alternately, the dancing scholar,” he says.

The classes are small, the atmosphere is intimate. Each student is given the opportunity to develop, experiment, practise, learn and refine. And there is no shortage of local talent, as evidenced by the many who have moved abroad to study the creative arts and who can now study dance at the University.

“The attitude towards the arts is changing, and locally, funds are being invested in projects and people,” he says with a satisfied smile.

These funds and those people have come together for Akasha. With support from the British Council and sponsorship from the Asian company Paradigm Wellness, the performance will premiere in Malta and then travel to Singapore.

Renzo Spiteri has created a soundscape within which the performers – Khoo accompanied by two dancers, two actors, all Maltese – will engage together to the vocal accompaniment of UK-based Pushkala Gopal. With so many voices, bodies and identities on board, the audience can look forward to an ethereal voyage into the realm of the unseen.

Akasha will be performed at the Manoel Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday  at 8pm.

www.teatrumanoel.com.mt