Aakash Odedra in Songs of the Bulbul

A year after its much-admired premiere, ‘Songs of the Bulbul’ at last comes to London…

Aakash Odedra in ‘Songs of the Bulbul’. © Foteini Christofilopoulou.

Aakash Odedra Company
Songs of the Bulbul
★★★★★
London, Sadler’s Wells East
17 July 2025
aakashodedra.com
www.sadlerswells.com

Last year was a good one for Aakash Odedra. With Aditi Mangaldas, he toured Mehek to much critical acclaim (I gave it 5 stars), and by the end of the year he won two National Dance Awards, including jointly winning the headline Best Male Dancer gong. Earlier this week he was appointed a Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist, joining a phenomenal list of other names, including Matthew Bourne, Sylvie Guillem, Akram Khan and Crystal Pite, to name just a few¹.

Returning to last year, Odedra also premiered Songs of the Bulbul at the Edinburgh Festival, for which he received a clutch of 5-star reviews². Now making a short UK tour before heading to the Venice Biennale, London at last gets to see Songs in an all-too-short three-night run at Sadler’s Wells East, ending on Saturday. It’s pretty much sold out already, and perhaps rather a shame it wasn’t put on at the Wells proper, with its much greater capacity. Anyway, pray for returns because this is a fabulous show.

Songs of the Bulbul is a 55-minute solo based around Persian/Sufi myths, in which nightingales, or ‘Bulbuls’, are seen as symbolic of our souls and the search for spiritual enlightenment. In a clear narrated introduction to the night, everyone is brought up to speed with the myths and the three stages of deprivation to which birds are subjected to encourage their most sweetly beguiling songs — caged, then denied nearly all light, and finally totally blinded. In despair, they die, but just before death, they sing at their best and most glowingly and movingly. As myths go, it’s pretty wretched to modern sensibilities, but I appreciate its allegorical nature — we can go through serious deprivations in life, but we rise to them and find our own enlightened freedom. And then we die… or something like that.

While the Sufi inspiration might jar a little, the production and dance itself are simply stunning and life-affirming, despite their painful moments in showing the Bulbuls’ life. Aakash Odedra’s Kathak base is clearly in evidence, but it’s evolved into a much more emotionally engaging style — we’ve seen that in his own work, but here the choreography is by Rani Khanam rather than Odedra himself. It’s Khanam who is fluent in both Kathak and Sufi texts, and the two of them have created a harmonious, cohesive style that respects the past but feels contemporary and speaks to us all.

Bulbuls are often associated with roses, and the design weaves rose petals into the action, with Odedra whipping them up into bewitching tornados of fleeting colour. Much of this is shown in a promotional video, and (for once) the video really aligns with the fuller performance. The designs are the work of Emanuele Salamanca and Kanika Thakur and, together with Fabiana Piccioli’s highly sophisticated lighting, they really strike home.

As with the dance, the soundscape draws on Indian and Persian roots, welding them together with a distinctly 21st-century cinematic sweep and dramatic punctuations. Composer Rushil Ranjan also incorporates some singing, which enhances the spiritual impact with its echoey chants, even if the non-English words have no meaning for most of us. Yet it all feels so right — music, movement and design are all movingly aligned.

I invariably feel a little cheated by a dance show that lasts less than an hour, but Odedra could not do more, and in fact Songs of the Bulbul is the perfect length. Tragic and uplifting by turns, it’s yet another 5-star winner of a work from the Leicester-based company.