Aakash Odedra on his EIF dance show Songs of the Bulbul - 'I'm fascinated by every bird I see'

Songs of the Bulbul | Edinburgh International Festival

Aakash Odedra is describing his recent experience with birds, and I’m trying to push thoughts of Alfred Hitchcock from my mind. Mainly because Odedra, unlike Tippi Hedren, is clearly delighted that wild birds keep appearing by his side. And, to be fair, the feathered friends he is attracting are beautiful songbirds.

“The strangest thing has happened in the last two or three months,” he says. “Everywhere I've gone, bulbuls have sat around me. I've never seen so many in my life. There was one in Goa which sat and sang while I was in the shower, it was quite incredible.”

All of which has proved very inspiring for Odedra’s new dance piece, Songs of the Bulbul, which will receive its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival. It’s a welcome return for audiences who loved his 2022 duet, Samsara, performed with Chinese dancer Hu Shenyuan. This time, however, he’s on his own but as one of the UK’s finest exponents of Kathak and Bharatanatyam, Odedra is no stranger to dancing solos.

Born in Birmingham and trained in Indian classical dance in both the UK and India from a young age, he has been running his own Leicester-based dance company since 2011. Over the years, his captivating movement style has been shaped by such esteemed choreographers as Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Aditi Mangaldas.

For Songs of the Bulbul, he has teamed up with Delhi-based choreographer Rani Khanam, the first person to put Sufism (a branch of Islam) and Kathak together.

“She's phenomenal,” says Odedra. “For Rani, everything is about subtleness, the fine detail and the emotional and spiritual aspect. I am constantly a student in front of her, always learning something. She works completely differently to all the other choreographers I've worked with. If something doesn't come for four days she'll just sit there. It doesn't matter how long, she’ll just say ‘I'm not feeling it’. But then, when she's inspired, nothing can stop her.”

Set to a specially commissioned original score blended with verses of Islamic poetry, Songs of the Bulbul is described by Odedra as a “metaphor for an artist’s life”. The piece also references Sufi mythology, and in particular the tale of a bulbul held in captivity, that sings sweeter and sweeter the closer it comes to death. Comparing the ephemeral nature of dance with the short-lived beauty of birdsong, Odedra acknowledges that giving of himself to an audience may reap rewards, but it comes at a price.

“Every time I perform on stage I die a little,” he says. “I feel like I've left a part of my soul there. It's strange because there’s a roar of applause and there's an appreciation, but what people don't realise is I have left a part of my being there. And the story of the captured bulbul, it’s very harsh but in the end it's to get the most heart-wrenching melody out of this bird. So there's a kind of parallel with an artist's journey. You work to continually refine yourself until ultimately you have to leave your art, either through the soul leaving the body or because you cannot physically do what you do anymore.”

This isn’t the first time Odedra’s love of birds has manifested itself onstage. Little Murmur, a dance theatre piece for children and families created in 2021, also had birds at its centre. It’s a passion echoed in his personal life, leading to some interesting sightings on the streets of Leicester.

“I have a cockatoo and a coop full of fantail doves,” he says. “I feel like there are unspoken words and feelings that are understood between me and the birds. I've always felt that, since childhood. Birds have been the closest type of friend, and the most reliable and honest friends I've ever had.”

“There's something about their freedom, the fact they can fly, that they can leave the earth. Even my cockatoo free-flies - he goes outside and he’s notorious in my area. He'll fly around and sometimes he decides to sit on someone's shoulder, and then he comes back home. The fantails are free to fly away too, so they don't have to come back, but they do. I'm just fascinated by every bird I see - if I'm on a journey, my eye is in the sky trying to spot a buzzard or red kite, anything I see hovering.”

Odedra’s love of birds may have fed into his new piece, but they won’t be joining him onstage. Looking back on his previous Festival visit, when he had Shenyuan dancing beside him in Samsara, he describes the two of them as being “Part of the same soul”.

So how does it feel to carrying the show alone?

“There is a certain energy on stage when you have another dancer,” says Odedra. “You've got to take on some of the energy of that person and hopefully pass on a little bit of yours, so you can create this synergy between you, the other person and the audience. When you're doing a solo it's a very different world because you're inhabiting open space. There are no islands for you to hop onto, you have to go within and create a relationship with the emptiness.” 

“I've done a lot of solos, so loneliness becomes your best friend. You can be in an auditorium full of 3,000 people, but you're still on your own. In that case, you've got to play with the energy around you, the energy above, and what the audience is giving.”

Despite being alone on stage, for Odedra, this new piece is all about connection. “I think we live in a world that is quite devoid of hope, where there's a lot of doom and gloom, and we can feel disconnected from what I would call the soul or nature,” he says. “And I feel Songs of the Bulbul, in a way, is an attempt to connect to that. So for me it’s a very special piece.”

Songs of the Bulbul, Lyceum Theatre, Friday 9-Sunday 11 August.