The 2025 edition of the AlUla Arts Festival showcases the collaborative work of acclaimed English choreographer Akram Khan, together with last year’s Saudi Arabia pavilion artist at the Venice Biennale, Manal AlDowayan. The performance premiered under the desert sky, before being adapted to go onto other cities worldwide. This was, as Khan explains, an opportunity to think outside the designated spaces of dance. "I was approached to collaborate with Manal AlDowayan and we both realised that we share common themes in our art, particularly around the concepts of ritual and memory. I wanted to work on the project with her because of the connection we had through our shared vision and the profound inspiration we drew from the landscape itself - a sacred space rich with local culture. I met with her and it felt so natural. The performance became a way for us to honour the place and the themes we both care so deeply about. The site-specific performance is one element in our journey together, the next being the indoor adaptation that will tour to theatres worldwide which I am super excited about.”

Going back through his illustrious career, you understand that collaborating has always been a compulsion for Khan. Some of his most definitive performances came about as a consequence of his looking to his contemporaries of different disciplines, whom he invited to influence and affect his work. Rationalising those relationships, with the likes of actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, writer Hanif Kureishi and German composer Steve Reich, “as a compromise of choice”. Crucially Khan has always remained humble enough to appreciate that to create something meaningful he needed the influence of others, beginning with his first full-length work Kaash (2002), which involved the music of Nitin Sawhney and the set design of sculptor Anish Kapoor; both of whom he would call upon again. The inaugural performance of his newly formed company was a breathtaking examination of space, with a cast of five international dancers invited to bridge the worlds of classical kathak and contemporary dance. When speaking about the performance, Khan appeared emboldened to want to take from the greatest of all ideas, “Hindu gods, black holes, Indian time cycles, tablas, creation and destruction,” as the bones and body of his work.

As Khan explains, “It was an important moment on my journey and it was also my first collaboration with a visual artist. At its core, Kaash explores themes of spirituality and the universe - it delves into ideas that transcend words. When we brought it to Edinburgh, yes it was a performance, but it was also an invitation for the audience to feel and engage on a deeper level. It marked the beginning of something extraordinary for me and the Company.” For each act, the intense rhythm and repetition of kathak inspired an exhausting examination of self. The athletic bodies in black, against Kapoor’s nihilistic backdrops, roll over and reach into space as though possessed by the past, as Khan’s remedy for the present. But despite the real sense of so much movement on stage, it is a work that Khan highlights for its stillness and the empty spaces between dancers and the audience. It is a work that lays the foundation for what followed. He says, “I often talk about this in the studio. For me, there is a lot of stillness in my work, as powerful as movement. There’s a deep intention behind every shift or pause. The relationship between the body and space is always a dialogue. It’s a process that is constantly evolving - even when we are on tour in new spaces.”

Khan has talked very eloquently throughout his career about his body as his language, how words were never enough and that the classical “had something very spiritual about it," which proved pivotal growing up. He insists on how dance facilitates "not just the sense of ritual and discipline," but "the sense that [it] can be connected to something beyond yourself”. Khan was schooled in the art of kathak by the acclaimed North Indian dancer Pratap Pawar, teacher and pupil, or as he admits, "what I had with him was like that of a father and son. I owe so much of who I am, both as an artist and a person, to his influence. He instilled a sense of discipline and a deeper connection to my form.”

Another key to his practice and how he often likes to explain his performances, is as a negotiation of space, as "the space one goes into is a temple". Approaching the stage with as much physicality as fragility, Khan calls upon so many characteristics of the head and heart. Acknowledging “that he was never going to be the perfect kathak dancer," he admits to never wanting to concentrate on one discipline of dance given there are so many other forms of dance on offer. That curiosity, together with collaboration and the virtues of courage, caring and connection are what his company see as central to their artistic endeavour.

In terms of others being influential, Khan went from Kaash in 2000 to zero degrees in 2005, inviting Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, sculptor Anthony Gormley and the further involvement of Sawhney, who shored up a successful second work. Next, he conceived Sacred Monsters in 2006, which featured Sylvie Guillem for a performance that was an opportunity to showcase both their talents, as a duel of kathak and ballet combined. Far from being an army of one, Akram Khan Company, since its conception, looked outward, for a post-modern approach of challenging by changing kathak’s vocabulary. Likened to all the leading lights of literature, film, performance and art, Khan hasn’t stayed with what he is familiar with, but looked to arts in its entirety, for innovative ways of returning to the past to prise open a new future for expressive dance.

Further collaborative productions followed, including In–I (2008), before his selection to choreograph part of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, after which many more landmark performances followed. For all the years Khan has taken to the stage, the works that resonate are those that see him share the stage, by submitting to someone else, that like a relationship, is reciprocated. One of his five C’s, Khan carries collaboration with him as a kindred spirit, seeing it as “an exchange that goes far beyond just ideas. It’s about learning and unlearning. It’s about surrendering to the process and remaining open to seeing the world through a different lens. There’s an incredible trust that forms on this shared journey. I’ve been fortunate to work this way for years and I consider it a real gift to have my collaborators’ expertise and perspectives throughout the creative process.”

A man devoted to dance, as much enriched by the forces of nature, Khan sees the modern experience as emptying of everything that matters. He fears "we're losing the ability to truly see, feel, listen and respond. I often speak of the five senses - feeling, listening, hearing, seeing - being fully present inside the theatre is one of the last sacred rituals that we have as humans. When that sensory connection begins to fade and we allow technology to replace it, that’s when I feel we’re no longer truly human.” And for all his success sees failure as fundamental, “I always say that failure is an essential part of the process. It’s not something to fear but a necessary step on the journey. Failure is where growth happens, it forces us to confront our limitations and rethink our approach.”