The second Baku International Arts Festival (BIAF 2026), taking place from October 28 to November 8, 2026, is bringing leading international artists and creative groups to the Azerbaijani capital. The festival programme includes more than 20 events spanning dance, theatre, music, film and visual arts. Among the highlights is Akram Khan Company's Thikra: Night of Remembering, co-created with Saudi artist Manal AlDowayan, who serves as the production's visual director.
The work, which explores memory, ancestral knowledge and the cultural heritage of the East, will be presented in Baku as part of the festival programme. Manal AlDowayan, who is participating in BIAF 2026, spoke to AzerNEWS about her artistic practice, Saudi heritage and the ideas behind Thikra. In the conversation, AlDowayan discussed her transition from visual art to live performance, the role of women in preserving cultural memory, and her experience representing Saudi Arabia at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Q: How was the Thikra project born, and what was the initial idea or memory that inspired it? A: Thikra began with the idea that without a past, there is no future. It became very personal for me during my early visits to AlUla, where I was exposed to a history that I hadn't really encountered through my education.
When the historical sites opened, I was struck by how much knowledge was held there, in the architecture, the rock inscriptions, the symbols, and the traces of how people lived. It made me think about what happens when these histories are overlooked, and what it means to rediscover them. From there, Thikra developed around remembrance and the search for ancestral knowledge, told through a community of women and the ways they preserve and pass that knowledge from one generation to another.
For me, that search for the past is something universal. Every civilization has its own ways of remembering, and Thikra is really about how we carry those memories with us and allow them to continue into the future. Q: What drew you to move from visual art into the world of theatre?
A: It actually came through an invitation, so it wasn't something I had planned or expected. This project is quite a departure from my usual practice, and it was my first time working on a dance production, so I entered it with a lot of curiosity. I've admired Akram's work for many years, and the opportunity to collaborate with him felt exciting, but I also knew I was stepping into a completely different creative world.
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