Recombobulation by Heather DeAtley

Travel affords us infinite
opportunities to discombobulate and recombobulate, deconstructing and
reconstructing personal and collective boundaries constantly. Milwaukee's
Mitchell International Airport acknowledges this truth with refreshing levity
in their designated "Recombobulation
Area."  These containers of transition and constant flux often invite
new sensations, while redefining what it means to be/go home. Whether train or
bus station, elevator, or airport, these seminal spaces of the in
between--where you're not quite here nor there and always arriving or seeking
to arrive, serve as the backdrop for Akram Khan's bahok.

We step into the process of
getting from here-to-there, but what happens in the interval? Do we become
closed systems or open ourselves to the richness of new interactions? Earlier
this week, I spent nearly 13 hours in the Ataturk Istanbul Airport and would
have gladly welcomed a non-conventional source of engagement as demonstrated by
this "artistic
exercise" in the Antwerp Central Station. It
begs the question of: What do we resign ourselves to while traveling--banality
or magic?

In the spirit of Alain de Botton's
Airport
Experiment, in which this writer took up
residence at Heathrow Airport for a week and captured the ruminations and
insights in his book, "A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary,"
Choreographer Akram Khan serves as a self-appointed choreographer-in-residence
to an airport or train station that could be anywhere in the world. He merges
distinctive contemporary elements and Kathak (a North Indian style of classical
dance centered on storytelling) informed movements seamlessly to punctuate an
otherwise ordinary setting. As modeled by Khan, airports and train stations
might just be inspired to enlist Choreographers-in-Residence as an act of
revolution in changing how we travel...