Thikra : Night of Remembering

In Thikra - "Night of Remembrance" - fourteen dancers engage in a profound dialogue between Western dance and the Indian tradition of Bharata Natyam. But this new creation by Akram Khan, born as an in situ version near the historic city of AlUla in Saudi Arabia, feeds as much on impressions emerging from the desert as on the millennia-old cultural sites of the Medina region, linked to India since antiquity by an important trade route. To reinvent these exchanges, Akram Khan and contemporary Saudi artist Manal AlDowayan have explored a multitude of feminine practices, both in everyday life and in a sacred space. Thikra is also a tribute to our ancestors that is anchored in the present, as are the enchanting costumes, created under the direction of visual artist AlDowayan.