Paul Mason - Hay Festival 2016

Internationally-acclaimed choreographer and dancer Akram Khan became a superstar when he performed a solo dance during the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony. In his latest work, Until The Lions, Khan finds himself returning to one of the seminal influences of his life, the epic Sanskrit narrative The Mahabharata and in particular the story of unsung hero Amba, a story which explores the idea and physical expression of gender and the baggage that comes with it. For his episode of Artsnight, Akram Khan asks whether gender is a construct, and meets artists from different fields who have chosen to challenge the strict rules that society imposes on what it means to be masculine or feminine.