New ‘The Jungle Book’ adaptation to premiere at Leicester Curve

The production is directed and choreographed by Akram Khan.

The Jungle Book will be adapted by choreographer Akram Khan into a new production, with performances taking place next year. The world premiere will be staged at Leicester Curve from 2 - 9 Apr. 2022.

Based on Rudyard Kipling's late 19th-century novel, the upcoming production will also be inspired by Khan's childhood experiences playing Mowgli in The Adventures of Mowgli in the 1980s. The reimagined dance show will be set in the modern day, with Mowgli's life told through the eyes of a refugee. Jungle Book Reimagined will ask how children today can become future storytellers in order to create a new world.

Ahead of the show, Khan said: "The Jungle Book's story has always been close to me. Not only because I had inhabited the role of Mowgli in an Indian dance production as a young boy, but more because of the three deep lessons it held within it, that I have since carried with me all my life - the lessons of commonality between species, the binding interdependence between humans, animals and nature and, finally, a sense of family and our need to belong... We must make changes from the grass roots up if we are to see a brighter future... I believe that the strongest and deepest way to tell this story is through the magic of dance, music and theatre."

Khan directs and choreographs Jungle Book Reimagined, with a book by Tariq Jordan. Anoushka Shankhar will provide original music, with lighting design by Michael Hulls, visual stage design by Tom Scutt, animation by Naaman Azhari and a casst of 10 ensemble dancers.

Jungle Book Reimagined is at Leicester Curve from 2 - 9 Apr. 2022.

^{Photo credit: Young Akram Khan in Akademi's The Adventures of Mowgli, 1984 (Photo by Alan Dilly from Akademi archives)}