Thikra : A Night of Remembering

with Akram Khan Company, 2025

Site-Specific Performance Piece Created By Akram Khan And Manal Aldowayan Commissioned By Wadi Alfannn

Thikra, meaning memory or remembrance in Arabic, is a contemporary dance production co-created by award-winning choreographer Akram Khan, his dance company, and visual artist Manal AlDowayan. Commissioned by the Royal Commission of AlUla, the work draws on the ancient landscape and cultural histories of AlUla to explore the relationship between ancestry, memory and identity.
My contribution to Thikra extended beyond visual direction to the development of its narrative, informed by my personal encounter with the forgotten histories of the Nabataeans. Discovering the lives, inscriptions and material traces of people who inhabited the land I call home challenged my understanding of history and belonging. This encounter became a starting point for imagining how the past might return to the present, not as a distant historical record, but as a living presence that continues to shape our identities and our understanding of ourselves.
As Visual Director, responsible for costume and scenography, I developed a visual language that brings this inquiry into the physical world of the performance. Drawing on AlUla’s landscape, archaeological references, geometric motifs and traditional craft practices, I worked with local artisans to create costumes and scenographic elements that connect material heritage with contemporary artistic expression. These elements exist in dialogue with the dancers’ bodies, allowing movement, texture, colour and form to become carriers of memory.
Created in collaboration with Akram Khan and his company, Thikra brings together choreography, sound and visual art in a collective meditation on ancestral knowledge, the persistence of history and the possibility of renewal. Ritual becomes a space in which past and present converge, where forgotten histories can be encountered anew and where the act of remembering opens a path towards the future.
First conceived in the landscape of AlUla, Thikra has travelled internationally, reaching audiences through more than 60 performances. Across different cultural contexts and theatrical spaces, the work continues to engage with a question that lies at the heart of my practice: how do the histories we inherit, and those we have lost, shape the way we understand who we are and where we belong?

CAST

MOTHER	Azusa Seyama Prioville
ANCESTOR	Ching-Ying Chien
TWIN DAUGHTER	Nikita Goile
TWIN DAUGHTER	Samantha Hines
TRIBE MEMBERS	Pallavi Anand, Kavya Ganesh, Jyotsna Jagannathan, Mythili Prakash, Divya Ravi, Mei Fei Soo, Harshini Sukumaran, Shreema Upadhyaya, Kimberly Yap, Hsin-Hsuan Yu
CHOREOGRAPHY	Akram Khan
DRAMATIC NARRATIVE	Manal AlDowayan & Akram Khan
COSTUME AND SET DESIGN	Manal AlDowayan
MUSIC COMPOSITION	Aditya Prakash
MUSIC CONTRIBUTIONS	Over 35 international musicians including those from the AlUla Music Hub, full names detailed in the following pages.
RABAB PLAYER	Ayesh Hodayban Alkhamaaly AlEnezi
VOCAL/PERCUSSION BAND	Sultan Gaber ElAlawi, Maged Ahmed ElAtiek, Tarek Saleh ElAtiek, Haitham Ahmed Mohamed
DESERT SOUNDS & MUSIC DESIGN	Gareth Fry
LIGHTING DESIGN	Zeynep Kepekli
DRAMATURGY	Manal AlDowayan & Blue Pieta
COMMUNITY MOVEMENT DIRECTION	Bilal Allaf & Jumana Al Refai
CREATIVE ASSOCIATE	Mavin Khoo
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR	Angela Towler
PRODUCTION VISUAL DIRECTION	Carla Giachello

This performance had its world premiere in AlUla in January 2025 and is expected to tour globally with AKC Company over the next two years

Commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla as part of the AlUla Arts Festival 2025

Photos courtesy of the Royal Commission for AlUla