From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

In-I

Juliette Binoche and Akram Khan

The Juliette Binoche/Akram Khan dance-theatre duet In-I is as exhilarating as it is exasperating, as absorbing as it is disturbing, as emotionally raw as it is theatrically polished.



In-I melds the two very different worlds of Binoche, 44, the acclaimed Oscar-winning French actress, and Khan, 33, one of Britain's most gifted dancer/choreographers. They both act and dance, so cunningly that the two disciplines flow easily into one another.

It's a love story on the dark side, with two wildly passionate protagonists, but it's the woman who is the aggressor. The man's outbursts come about because she goads him, even to violence. There's a happy ending of sorts, but it's tainted by their emotional baggage. The narcissism of both characters renders them quite unsympathetic.

Binoche, in her sexy red dress by Lanvin, dominates, in part because of the obsessive, overbearing character she portrays, but also because she, who cut her teeth in live theatre, can project her voice to be heard. With Khan's softer, rapid-fire delivery, I had to resort to the French subtitles to understand him, although I could feel his pain.

One wonders if Khan willingly gave Binoche pride of place. At the odd moment, glimpses of his justly famous hairpin turns and surgically precise physical language do occur, but it looks like his main goal choreographically was to hold back on his athletic prowess to better align himself with the more limited capabilities of non-dancer Binoche. Amazingly, he succeeds in this, and they become a matched pair of bodies in motion in the piece.

Their high-energy, gymnastic whirlwind of movement is filled with unforgettable images. The physical consummation of their love is depicted by Khan bent over forward with Binoche lying on his back, her upraised, wide open legs making large half circles in the air. At another point, when Khan is trying to break away from her clinging, he grabs Binoche's arm and twists her away from him so that she is reduced to the splayed figure of a rag doll.

Perhaps the most amusing sequence depicts the clash of their personalities after the bloom is off their love, involving clever repeated mime action using two chairs and a window created by lighting. She keeps positioning one chair and he keeps moving it. She closes the window that he continually opens. The other chair is a toilet, and the seat that he keeps forgetting to put down finally drives her to the breaking point.

Binoche grabs Khan's head in a hammerlock and pushes it into the toilet.

From this point, the relationship goes downhill. A simple social dance becomes a battle of wills that results in intricately choreographed violence until Khan literally hangs Binoche up on a wall where she dangles throughout her monologue. Her sudden crashing down makes the audience gasp.

The two main monologues are interesting for the subtext they add to the story.

Khan's character, a man of colour, tells of his love for a white woman, and the mullah of the mosque holding a knife to his throat because of his desire for an unbeliever. What he wants to hear from his religious teacher is that Adam was black and Eve was white, which would validate his love.

Binoche's character, with rising hysteria, speaks of a former lover's intense jealousy. He found a picture of her with a male friend, and was driven into a fury because he didn't believe it was a platonic relationship.

With the man's guilt fixated on race, and the woman's sadistic nature revealed as the result of abuse, the coupling of these damaged souls can only lead to more grief, and it is the disintegration of their love that is the heart of In-I. The marvel of the piece is how two supremely charismatic artists show through inventively detailed movement that they can't live with each other or without each other.

Kudos also to composer Philip Sheppard for his marvellous score, from the driving percussion that underlines the lovers' lust when they first meet, to the mournful string music of their romantic decline. Michael Hulls's atmospheric red/purple/pink lighting, projected on the massive slab of wall in a set designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor, exquisitely captures the downward shift of mood.

The work premiered in London last fall. Lucky Montreal to grab this plum of a North American premiere.

In-I runs at Montreal's Salle Pierre-Mercure in the Centre Pierre-Péladeau through to Jan. 17 (1-800-361-4595 or 1-514-790-1245). The visual-art installation Portraits: In-Eyes featuring drawings and poems by Juliette Binoche is at Cinémathèque québécoise to Feb. 1.