LONDON — Israel Galván is the maverick of the flamenco world, a brilliantly talented, ground-breaking artist who combines the almost tragic seriousness of his art with an absurdist sense of its possibilities. Akram Khan, the kathak-trained British choreographer, is known for his fusion of that north Indian classical form with a more contemporary physical idiom, and for his collaborations with artists (Juliette Binoche, Sylvie Guillem, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) from other dance traditions and disciplines.
“Torobaka,” a flamenco-kathak encounter between these two men, is another such collaboration for Mr. Khan, but a departure for Mr. Galván, until now a proudly solo performer. The piece, which opened this week at Sadler’s Wells after a June premiere in Grenoble, France, is simply presented. Five musicians are arrayed behind a circle of deep pink light that demarcates the dancers’ performance area. (The lighting, by Michael Hulls, is of an exquisite, deep-toned simplicity throughout.) It suggests a bullfighting ring or an arena, and it’s no surprise that at the start, Mr. Khan and Mr. Galván enter from each side and face off as if about to duel.
Their first movements — arms flung into the air, rapid freeze-frame stances — are accompanied by sharp percussive sounds. Then Mr. Galván lets out a guttural roar (Mr. Khan peers incredulously into his mouth, defusing the macho posturing), and the two men begin a foot-stamping duel. The connections between flamenco and kathak are immediately apparent. Both deploy powerful, rhythmic footwork; both use the arms and upper body with elaborate, sinuous beauty. Both are forms of music-making as well as dance in their rapid tattoos of the feet and clapping of hands.
The program notes for “Torobaka” (the name is drawn from “toro” for bull and “vaca” for cow, the two animals sacred to each tradition) suggest their shared heritage is the result of Romany migration from India to Spain in the 14th and 15th centuries. But there are significant differences between the forms, too. Flamenco is implacable, abstract, self-absorbed. Kathak is witty, storytelling, full of facial expression and mime-like gesture.
These subtleties get lost in “Torobaka,” which works best when Mr. Khan and Mr. Galván finally perform a long duet in the final section of the piece. Suddenly, there is a real thrill to the confrontation of their movement styles, and to their borrowings from one another. Moving mostly in sync, they embrace, whirl away from one another, duel with their feet, then slow their bodies into elegant, curving shapes. In one fine passage, Mr. Galván stands behind Mr. Khan, his arms writhing sideways so that they look like a many-armed Shiva. In another, as the percussive music mounts in intensity, they whirl wildly with the liquid yet precise, rapidly changing arms of kathak, then slow into Buster Keaton-like slapstick fighting poses.
It takes a long time to get there. Most of the piece is taken up by solo sequences from Mr. Galván and Mr. Khan, punctuated by a passage in which the musicians (David Azurza, B. C. Manjunath, Bobote, Christine Leboutte, Bernhard Schimpelsberger) get center stage. The music, an unexpected mix of Spanish folk song, ragas, Middle Eastern-sounding sonorities and percussive beat, is occasionally combined with counting in Spanish, a nod to the kathak “bols” that playfully mark the musicianship and rhythmic skills of the dancer.
There is nothing wrong with watching Mr. Galván or Mr. Khan dancing alone. Both are masters of their art, Mr. Galván a particularly eccentric one. His flamenco is a form in which any part of the body (even the teeth) can be used as a rhythm generator, and in which he emits raucous cries and shrieks as his heeled feet pound the floor with almost laughable speed. But he is also precise, even stylized; although he often seems to be improvising — at moments, he even appears to be vogueing — he always appears utterly in control of every tiny shift of weight, every gestural decision.
Mr. Khan, barefoot and wearing ankle bells (all the performers are dressed simply in black trousers and tunics), is a more elusive presence. His whirling, stamping movement can seem boneless, an eddy of whiplashing curves, as his feet stamp out nuanced rhythms. But the specificity of kathak is sacrificed to spectacle; we don’t see the art of abhinaya, the subtle facial expressions and gestures that are an essential element of the form, nor do we enjoy the narrative pleasures that characterize it.
The attempt to find a meeting point in these dance forms is a fascinating but only intermittently successful one in “Torobaka.” Much of the piece feels slightly remote (perhaps those closer to the stage might have had a different experience); only in the final encounter do sparks fly and boundaries seem to dissolve.
Torobaka. Israel Galván and Akram Khan. Sadler’s Wells, London. Through Nov. 8.