This year's KickOff'24, an intensive training program for professional dancers, delves into the artistic world of Akram Khan. In 2024, the program will last one week and, as usual, will take place just after the summer season, at the EVC.
This coming edition will be held from September 2 to 6, 2024, and Nico Ricchini will be the trainer.
Schedule
SEP 2 — 6
10am-1:30pm
BREAK
2:30pm-5:30pm
Target audience
Dance professionals
Maximum number of participants
30 people
Price ⎯ 220€
This program has the support of GDA Foundation
GDA Foundation grants available
The GDA Foundation supports this training by providing grants for attendance*.
9 Grants for GDA Cooperators (70€)
13 Grants for Non-Cooperators (130€)
* GDA Foundation grants are allocated in accordance with the order in which registration is confirmed.
Online registration
Personal accident insurance required
About the trainer
Nico Ricchini (he/him) trained in Ballet in Lyon and in Contemporary Dance in Barcelona in Varium. Over the past ten years, he has worked with artists and companies such as Pepe Hevia Danza (Cuba), Fernando Madagan (Nederlands Dans Theater), Tupac Martir in London, Emma Martin Dance, Akram Khan Company for the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, La Taimada, CLOD Ensemble and Lali Ayguadé Company among others.
His performance of the solo Chotto Desh for Akram Khan Company on a three-year international tour was a highlight of his career: a work translated in six languages, hosted in 85 cities and seen by more than 110,000 spectators. He has also been an actor, together with Lali Ayguadé, in the multi-award winning and Oscar nominee shortfilm Timecode by Juanjo Giménez.
As a dance entrepreneur, Nico has initiated innovative projects in Barcelona for the education of contemporary dance such as the FREE BODIES (since 2018) and FREE ROOTS (since 2022), programes that he co-directs together with Nadine Gerspacher. Since 2018, he directs Big Story Productions which produces and sells contemporary dance production and projects as well as represents bold and audacious artists. In 2020, started working again with Akram Khan Company as a rehearsal director and performer for Chotto Xenos. Since 2022, he’s founded the creative venue FREEZONE to support creation, movement and performance in Barcelona.
About Akram Khan
Akram Khan (he/him) is an essential and world-renowned artist in the field of dance today. In just over 23 years he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His most famous works include Jungle Book Reimagined, Outwitting the Devil, XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.
Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines, including the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.
Khan's work is considered deeply moving, and can even be read as ritual, given the influence that classical Kathak dance has on it. "I see things through kathak eyes," we heard him say. Khan's first solos quickly caught the eye, as not only was he daring and inventive in his Kathak experiments, but he also proved to be a magnetic and mesmerizing dancer, capable of both captivating stillness and galvanic speed.
Throughout his career, Khan has received numerous awards. He has received two Laurence Olivier Awards, the Bessie Award - New York Dance and Performance, the ISPA Distinguished Artist (from the International Society for the Performing Arts), the Fred & Adele Astaire Award, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and nine Critics' Circle National Dance Awards, among many others.