Akram Khan and Manal AlDowayan premier Thikra: Evening of Remembering commissioned by Wadi AlFann, AlUla

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• Thikra: Evening of Remembering, a singular world-class site-specific efficiency by Akram Khan and Manal AlDowayan commissioned by Wadi AlFann, premiered throughout the AlUla Arts Pageant 2025
• Thikra has been devised in collaboration with the native AlUla group throughout a number of disciplines together with motion, music and design
• Set design and costumes created by Wadi AlFann artist Manal AlDowayan

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ALULA, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 27, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — THIKRA: NIGHT OF REMEMBERING A brand new efficiency manufacturing by Akram Khan and Manal AlDowayan premiered beneath the celebrities within the historic oasis of AlUla, Saudi Arabia, on the 25^th of January as a part of the AlUla Arts Pageant 2025. It’s commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla, the open-air-museum of Land Artwork, as a part of their pre-opening programme.

A site-specific efficiency piece has been created by internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning choreographer Akram Khan and Wadi AlFann artist Manal AlDowayan, who represented Saudi Arabia on the sixtieth Worldwide Venice Biennale.

Khan joined forces with AlDowayan to create a cross-cultural efficiency piece. Fourteen dancers mix the standard Indian classical dance, underpinning Khan’s choreography with up to date rhythms and gestures impressed by the desert landscapes and historic myths of AlUla. Thikra options an unique music rating by celebrated composer Aditya Prakash, with contributions from pioneering musician Loulwa Al Sharif and native musicians from AlUla Music Hub.

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AlDowayan has collaborated with Madrasat Addeera, AlUla’s artwork and design centre, and the native artisans to create banners for the opening sequence. Moreover, the artist has designed costumes, weaving conventional craft methods with up to date aesthetics, utilizing pure dyes and pigments made to mirror the tonalities of AlUla’s panorama. Visible aesthetics embrace set and costume design, banners, make-up and jewelry which take inspiration from the panorama, wealthy historical past and heritage together with the Nabataeans and geometric motifs to suggest the position and symbolism of every protagonist.

Thikra resonates with AlUla’s dedication to partaking multi-generational native audiences and fostering cultural growth throughout motion, music and design. The efficiency is impressed by native traditions and engages younger Saudi professionals by workshops and coaching classes led by Akram Khan Firm and Manal AlDowayan. The musical composition contains recordings of native percussionists and members of the AlUla group, who play a key position within the opening sequence and procession. The programme levels an interface for inventive encounters within the arts sector, to ignite aspirations for the native artistic ecosystem and to encourage the younger era. Group workshops have been led by performers Jumana Al Refai and Bilal Allaf.

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Performing alongside a number of the world’s best dancers, a bunch of forty native folks have fashioned a procession assembly friends at a round stage, set in opposition to the monumental cliffs of Wadi AlFann’s desert canyon. The viewers sat beneath the celebrities, on conventional Sadu weaved carpets. They’ve skilled an imagined gathering the place performers expressed the retrieval of a misplaced previous to seek out therapeutic and transcendence. Thikra displays the concept with out a previous, there isn’t a future.

The efficiency has taken place in opposition to the breathtaking backdrop of Wadi AlFann, which interprets to ‘Valley of the Arts’; a 65-square-kilometre world cultural vacation spot for up to date Land Artwork, the place works by worldwide artists are being completely put in within the panorama of AlUla.

Commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Thikra takes inspiration from AlUla’s heritage, dramatic topography, undulating vistas, outstanding geological buildings, complicated pure ecosystem and native communities. The world premiere of Thikra was a part of Wadi AlFann’s dynamic site-specific efficiency programme which has included Fenling Firm’s musical manufacturing 9 Songs and performances by artists Ahaad Alamoudi, Afra Atiq, Mohammad Al Faraj and Moza Almatrooshi. Following its premiere in AlUla, Thikra will embark on a world tour as Akram Khan Firm’s main new manufacturing for 2025, tailored as an indoor efficiency, bringing AlUla tradition, heritage and artistry to audiences worldwide.

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This efficiency is a part of the AlUla Arts Pageant, which runs from 16 January to 22 February 2025, and affords guests an immersive journey by artwork, design, artist residencies and workshops set in opposition to the backdrop of the traditional metropolis. Key highlights of this yr’s Pageant are an exhibition of labor by Wadi AlFann artist James Turrell, site-specific displays and installations, alongside public applications of courses, interactive actions and extra.

Manal AlDowayan feedback
Thikra deepens my exploration of AlUla’s voices, which started with my analysis for Oasis of Tales in 2018, my upcoming fee for Wadi AlFann. It marks a private milestone as my first time engaged on each costume and set design in addition to my first collaboration with my buddy and nice artistic pressure Akram Khan. This distinctive alternative has allowed me to include efficiency into my inventive observe, mixing efficiency, sound, costume and native artistry to honour the previous and encourage the long run. It has been a privilege to collaborate with the AlUla group, who maintain a particular place in my coronary heart.

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Akram Khan feedback
I’m thrilled to have collaborated with the fantastic Manal AlDowayan on this particular fee for AlUla Arts Pageant. I’ve at all times believed that our imaginative and prescient of the long run is formed by the previous, and all through historical past, every tradition has had its personal distinctive perspective on what lies forward. Standing amidst the vastness of the AlUla desert, in Wadi AlFann, I felt compelled to uncover the layers of cultures which have handed by this panorama. The combination of the area people has been an extremely significant expertise with their voices embedded all through the work. I’m tremendous excited to be presenting Thikra with Manal, in AlUla, earlier than sharing with audiences worldwide.

Nora Aldabal, Director of Arts and Artistic Industries, Royal Fee for AlUla
Within the lead as much as the opening of Wadi AlFann, and as a part of the AlUla Arts Pageant 2025, we’re delighted to current Thikra as a part of our ongoing efficiency programme, providing guests a style of the brand new awe-inspiring world vacation spot for up to date artwork that’s Wadi AlFann. This efficiency not solely brings worldwide consideration to AlUla’s distinctive panorama steeped in hundreds of years of pure, historic and cultural heritage but additionally highlights the invaluable contributions of native expertise and craftsmanship. We’re happy to welcome again Manal AlDowayan to AlUla, the place her deep reference to the area people continues to encourage cultural dialogue. Via initiatives like Thikra, we strengthen our cultural id and encourage the following era of creatives in Saudi Arabia.

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For extra data go to:
www.livingmuseum.com
@artsalula | #wadialfann

PRESS CONTACTS:
Pelham Communications

Saskia Deliss saskia@pelhamcommunications.com

Rosie Lowit rosie@pelhamcommunications.com

Media Contact, aloisia@pelhamcommunications.com

Please discover the press package right here.

Royal Fee for AlUla
media@rcu.gov.au

NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Thikra world tour:
A dedication to current Thikra has been secured from a number of the most prestigious worldwide festivals and venues. These might be introduced individually by the respective festivals and venues over the approaching yr.

Artistic Group:
Akram Khan, Choreographer
Manal AlDowayan, Visible Director
Aditya Prakash, Composer
Gareth Fry, Sound Design
Zeynep Kepekli, Lighting Design
Jumana Al Refai, Group Motion Practitioner
Bilal Allaf, Group Motion Guide & Practitioner
Mavin Khoo, Artistic Affiliate / Coach
Blue Pieta, Dramaturge
Angela Towler, Rehearsal Director
Farooq Chaudhry, Producing Director
Pallavi Anand, Dancer
Ching-Ying Chien, Dancer
Kavya Ganesh, Dancer
Nikita Goile, Dancer
Samantha Hines, Dancer
Jyotsna Jagannathan, Dancer
Mythili Prakash, Dancer
Azusa Seyama Proville, Dancer
Divya Ravi, Dancer
Mei Fei Soo, Dancer
Harshini Sukumaran, Dancer
Shreema Upadhyaya, Dancer
Kimberly Yap, Dancer
Hsin-Hsuan Yu, Dancer

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Musicians and Vocalists (in recorded composition): Loulwa Al Sharif and over 35 different worldwide musicians and vocalists together with contributions from native expertise from AlUla.

Manal AlDowayan Biography

Manal AlDowayan is one among Saudi Arabia’s most important up to date artists working internationally. Her work, which spans numerous mediums together with pictures, sound, sculpture, and participatory observe, interrogates traditions, collective recollections, and the standing and illustration of ladies.

AlDowayan’s work has been exhibited regionally and internationally in establishments such because the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA (2023); the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada (2023); Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, USA (2023); Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE (2023); Misk Artwork Institute, Saudi Arabia (2023, 2022); Setouchi Triennale, Japan (2022); Diriyah Biennale, Saudi Arabia (2022); Taehwa River Eco Pageant, Korea (2021); Victoria & Albert Museum, UK (2021); British Museum, UK (2021); Desert X AlUla, Saudi Arabia (2020); the Aga Khan Museum, Canada(2018); Institut du monde arabe, France (2017); the Sharjah Artwork Basis, UAE (2016); Santander Artwork Gallery, Spain (2016); Prospect New Orleans, USA (2014); Gwangju Museum of Artwork, South Korea (2014); Mathaf: Arab Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Qatar (2014); amongst others. In 2024, AlDowayan represented Saudi Arabia on the sixtieth La Biennale di Venezia.

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Her works will be discovered within the collections of the British Museum, UK; Louisiana Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Denmark; the Centre Pompidou, France; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Qatar; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA. She participated within the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, USA (2015), and the artist-in-residence program on the Delfina Basis, UK (2009). She holds an MA in Up to date Artwork Follow in Public Spheres from the Royal Faculty of Artwork, London. Born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 1973, AlDowayan at present lives and works between London and Dhahran.

Akram Khan Biography

Akram Khan is among the most celebrated and revered dance artists of at present. In simply over 23 years he has created a physique of labor that has contributed considerably to the humanities within the UK and overseas. His popularity has been constructed on the success of imaginative, extremely accessible and related productions equivalent to Jungle E-book reimagined, Outwitting the Satan, XENOS, Till the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi, DESH, Vertical Highway, Gnosis and nil levels.

As an instinctive and pure collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from different cultures and disciplines. His earlier collaborators embrace the Nationwide Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visible artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, author Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.

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A spotlight of his profession was the creation of a bit of the London 2012 Olympic Video games Opening Ceremony that was acquired with unanimous acclaim.

Khan has been the recipient of quite a few awards all through his profession together with the Laurence Olivier Award, the Bessie Award (New York Dance and Efficiency Award), the celebrated ISPA Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award on the Edinburgh Worldwide Pageant, the South Financial institution Sky Arts Award and ten Critics’ Circle Nationwide Dance Awards for his Firm, AKC. Khan was awarded an MBE for companies to bop in 2005. In 2022, he was introduced as the brand new Chancellor of De Montfort College, and he’s additionally an Honorary Graduate of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, College of London in addition to Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban. Khan is an Affiliate Artist of Sadler’s Wells and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London in addition to Curve.

About Arts AlUla:

The creation of Arts AlUla inside The Royal Fee for AlUla (RCU) is a dedication to crafting the following chapters in a millennia of inventive creation – celebrating cultural inheritance, presenting the artwork of our time, and shaping a future propelled by creativity. AlUla has lengthy been a constant and ever-evolving hub of cultural switch. It has been a spot of passage, a crossroads for commerce, and residential to successive civilizations who carved, sculpted and inscribed their lives into the panorama. The work of Arts AlUla seeks to protect this legacy: fuse the outdated with the brand new; the native with the worldwide, maintaining the humanities central to the spirit of AlUla as a spot of extraordinary pure and human heritage.

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Arts AlUla will convey to fruition a sequence of recent initiatives, initiatives and exhibitions. The art work curation will converse to RCU’s imaginative and prescient for the continued growth of AlUla’s up to date artwork scenes: positioning the humanities as a key contributor to AlUla’s character, the standard of life for its local people and the area’s financial future.

Arts AlUla focuses on transferring the skills of the Saudi nation and the native AlUla group into significant long-standing social and financial alternatives. This can be a key a part of the Journey by Time masterplan bringing collectively the 15 totally different landmark locations for tradition, heritage and creativity throughout AlUla.

About Wadi AlFann:
Wadi AlFann, which means ‘Valley of the Arts’, might be a world cultural vacation spot for up to date artwork, the place era-defining works by artists from world wide might be completely sited within the monumental panorama of AlUla, the extraordinary desert area of north-west Saudi Arabia.

New, large-scale, site-specific commissions by Manal AlDowayan (b. 1973, Saudi Arabia), Agnes Denes (b. 1931, Hungary), Michael Heizer (b. 1944, USA), Ahmed Mater (b. 1979, Saudi Arabia) and James Turrell (b. 1943, USA) would be the first 5 works to be conceived for Wadi AlFann, a spectacular valley spanning roughly 65 sq. kilometres. These preliminary 5 works will mark the beginning of a continued programme of commissions, with extra artists and actions to be introduced.

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Wadi AlFann will provide a profound alternative to expertise artwork in dialogue with nature. Studying from the desert, the artists are responding to the panorama of AlUla, taking inspiration from its dramatic topography, undulating vistas, outstanding geological buildings and sophisticated pure ecosystem. The works might be created with respect for the panorama, set in opposition to the gorgeous sandstone cliffs and canyons of the huge terrain.

Wadi AlFann will present unparalleled alternatives for native communities to expertise artwork as a supply of schooling and enrichment. Via job creation, expertise growth and engagement with native creatives, Wadi AlFann will strengthen AlUla’s cultural economic system, inspiring a brand new era of arts professionals and enhancing high quality of life for its residents.

This epic new vacation spot may even welcome artwork lovers, adventurers, and globetrotters from internationally on a transformative cultural journey to a singular place of artistic and geographical surprise, persevering with the area’s historical past as a spot of cross-cultural alternateAbout AlUla:

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Positioned 1,100 km from Riyadh, in North-West Saudi Arabia, AlUla is a spot of extraordinary pure and human heritage. The huge space, protecting 22,561km², features a lush oasis valley, towering sandstone mountains and historic cultural heritage websites relationship again hundreds of years to when the Lihyan and Nabataean kingdoms reigned.

Essentially the most well-known and recognised web site in AlUla is Hegra, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Web site. A 52-hectare historic metropolis, Hegra was the principal southern metropolis of the Nabataean Kingdom and is comprised of 111 well-preserved tombs, many with elaborate facades minimize out of the sandstone outcrops surrounding the walled city settlement. Present analysis additionally suggests Hegra was probably the most southern outpost of the Roman Empire after the Roman’s conquered the Nabataeans in 106 CE.

Along with Hegra, AlUla can be dwelling to historic Dadan, the capital of the Dadan and Lihyan Kingdoms and thought of to be one of the crucial developed 1st millennium BCE cities of the Arabian Peninsula, and Jabal Ikmah, an open air library of lots of of inscriptions and writings in many alternative languages, which has been not too long ago listed on the UNESCO’s reminiscence of the World Register. Additionally AlUla Outdated City Village, a labyrinth of greater than 900 mudbrick houses developed from at the least the twelfth century, has been chosen as one of many World’s Greatest Tourism Villages in 2022 by the UNWTO. Moreover, Hijaz Railway and Hegra Fort, that are key websites within the story and conquests of Lawrence of Arabia.
For extra data, please go to: www.experiencealula.com

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About AlUla Moments:
AlUla Moments is AlUla’s new dwelling for occasions. This calendar of occasions was launched on the finish of 2021 and launched new festivals to rejoice and unlock AlUla’s tales, uncover its secrets and techniques, and rejoice native and worldwide cultures. With 7,000 years of civilisations and residential to a number of the most refined historic kingdoms of antiquity, AlUla isn’t any stranger to social gatherings and cultural celebrations.

AlUla Moments calendar introduces 5 festivals: Winter at Tantora, which returned to rejoice heritage, tradition, and music; the Historical Kingdoms Pageant that celebrates the traditional civilisations that lived in AlUla and its neighboring oases in Khaybar and Tayma; along with the AlUla Skies Pageant, AlUla Arts Pageant, and AlUla Wellness Pageant.

The festivals provide a choice of experiences in artwork, tradition, music, nature, wellness, equestrian actions, eating, and astronomy. All of those experiences have been in celebration of the tradition, historical past, legacy and historical past of AlUla.
AlUla Moments moreover introduces numerous marquee occasions, together with AZIMUTH, Richard Mille AlUla Desert Polo, The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Endurance Cup, AlUla Camel Cup, and quite a lot of trend, journey and sporting occasions.

For extra data, please go to experiencealula.com/en/alula-moments

A photograph accompanying this announcement is on the market at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/458bc91c-a126-4a84-9383-2face0baa28d

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