Performing Arts Season in November with Akram Khan Company, Eun-Me Ahn and Ligia Lewis
In November, the Performing Arts Season 2025/26 is presenting three out of the seven international dance, theatre and performance works that focus on differing notions of identity and how these are interrelated with the world, highlighting the power of performance to navigate and articulate our shared yet diverse experiences.
With the German premiere of “Thikra: Night of Remembering” the Performing Arts Season presents the final tour production of the British Akram Khan Company at the end of its 25-year existence on 11 and 12 November at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
Eun-Me Ahn, a leading figure in the Korean performing arts scene, and her company will bring the European premiere of their latest creation, “Post-Orientalist Express” to the main stage of the Festspielhaus on 15 and 16 November. Under the title “Let's go! Dancing ‘in-between’” the choreographer will also offer a workshop for intermediate/advanced dancers at the Tanzfabrik Berlin on 17 November.
With “I'M NOT HERE FORRRRR...” the Gropius Bau is currently showing a comprehensive exhibition by Berlin-based artist and choreographer Ligia Lewis. Over the course of the exhibition, the new work “Wayward Chant” specially conceived for the atrium, will continue to evolve and will premiere on 28 and 29 November as part of the Performing Arts Season.
All three performances were co-produced by the Berliner Festspiele.
Press pictures can be downloaded in the press section of the Berliner Festspiele website. We are happy to receive your accreditation requests by e-mail: akkreditierung@berlinerfestspiele.de
Dance
Thikra: Night of Rememberng
Akram Khan Company
German premiere
Tuesday, 11 November, 19:30
Wednesday, 12 November, 19:30
Haus der Berliner, Main Stage
With its wide open skies and its traces and echoes of age-old rituals, the Saudi Arabian oasis town of AlUla was the inspiration for Akram Khan’s latest work “Thikra: Night of Remembering”. Eleven dancers from different traditions – classical Indian Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance – are on stage together and allow hybrid cultures, traditions, and perspectives to flow together to the original music of Indian-American composer Aditya Prakash. Khan created the production in collaboration with Saudi Arabian visual artist ManalAlDowayan who designed both the costumes and the visual scenography of the piece. Together with the ensemble, they explore universal questions concerning the heritage of female ancestors and their rituals and languages of movement.
Akram Khan in conversation with Marietta Steinhart
Tothe interview in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library
World premiere: 25 January 2025, Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla
(Indoor adaptation: 20 June 2025, Montpellier Danse Festival)
Commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla
Primary co-producing partner Bagri Foundation
Indoor adaptation co-produced by Berliner Festspiele, Brown Arts Institute at Brown University, Montpellier Danse Festival, Pina Bausch Zentrum, Sadler’s Wells, Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Théâtre de la Ville Paris
Supported by Arts Council England.
Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated dance artists of today.
For nearly 25 years, he has been creating imaginative and powerful works, including “GIGENIS: the generation of the Earth“, “Jungle Book reimagined“, “XENOS“, “Until the Lions“, “DESH“ and “zero degrees“. His artistic practice is characterized by collaboration and an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach. His previous collaborators include Sylvie Guillem, Juliette Binoche, Israel Galván, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Hanif Kureishi, Kylie Minogue, Florence and the Machine and the English National Ballet, developing the productions “Dust”, “Giselle”, and “Creature”. He also contributed to the design of the highly acclaimed opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
“Thikra: Night of Remembering” is the final touring production by the Akram Khan Company. After 25 years, this global tour marks the company’s final chapter and pays tribute to its extraordinary artistic legacy.
Dance
Post-Orientalist Express
Eun-Me Ahn
European Premiere
Saturday, 15 November, 19:30
Sunday, 16 Novomber, 19:00
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Main Stage
In her latest work “Post-Orientalist Express“ choreographer Eun-Me Ahn
takes an astute and playful look at romanticized Western representation of Asia. With her colourful and joyful imagery, she juxtaposes external attributions and
internalized stereotypes, beginning a dynamic search for new, hybrid cultural and choreographic identities. Her unique movement vocabulary rediscovers more than 90 costumes and music from various traditional and neo-traditional cultures and reads them from a contemporary perspective.
On 17 November, Eun-Me Ahn also facilitates the workshop “Let’s go! Dancing ‚in-between‘“ for intermediate/advanced dancers at Tanzfabrik Berlin. Please register in advance.
Eun-Me Ahn in conversation with Artistic Director of the Performing Arts Season Yusuke Hashimoto
Tothe interview in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library
World premiere: 2 May 2025, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul
A production of Eun-Me Ahn Company
Co-produced by Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Berliner Festspiele, Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Théâtre d’Orléans / Scène Nationale, Sydney Festival
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
Eun-Me Ahn is one of the leading figures in the Korean performing arts scene. With a repertoire exceeding 150 pieces, Eun-Me Ahn has cultivated a distinctive artistic language defined by her trademark vibrancy, positivity and bold use of colour. Captivated by traditional dance and shamanistic practices, she studied contemporary dance at Ewha Womans University in Seoul as well as at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. In 1988, she founded the Ahn Eun Me Company. From 2000 until 2004 she was the Artistic Director of the Daegu City Dance Company. In 2018, she became an associated artist at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In Europe, her works have been shown at various venues such as the Barbican Centre in London, the Teatro Municipal do Porto, Kampnagel Hamburg, the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Performance
Wayward Chant
Ligia Lewis
World premiere
Friday, 28 November, 20:00
Saturday, 29 November, 20:00
Gropius Bau, Lichthof
Artist and choreographer Ligia Lewis’s new work “Wayward Chant” explores the intersections of sound and movement, while figures appear and disappear within a fleetingly sketched choreography. She playfully uses the architecture of the atrium in the Gropius Bau to create visual effects with shadows. By drawing attention to what remains in the dark, she offers a counter-movement to familiar modes of representation.
From 16 October 2025 to 18 January 2026, the Gropius Bau will present the comprehensive exhibition “I'M NOT HERE FORRRRR...” by artist and choreographer Ligia Lewis, displaying including and existing works on the ground floor and in the atrium of the Gropius Bau. On 6 November, the “Spätschicht x Ligia Lewis” will also take place, during which the artist will analyse central themes of her work in conversation with theorist Alexander Ghedi Weheliye. The programme will be complemented by a reading, concerts and a screening.
Based in Berlin since 2013, Ligia Lewis has developed a multifaceted choreographic practice that spans performance, live installation and film. She is an artist, choreographer and director, and her work has been presented internationally on stages, in galleries and museums. In autumn 2023, she opened her first solo exhibition, “study now steady”, at the Center for Arts, Research and Alliances in New York City. A retrospective of her work entitled “Complaint, A Lyric” was presented at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in the same year. In 2024, she was a participating artist at the Whitney Biennial. In 2025, she collaborated with Cullberg, one of Sweden's most renowned dance companies. The resulting work, “Some Thing Folk,” premiered in 2025 at the Tanz im August festival in Berlin. Ligia Lewis has received numerous prizes and awards, including the German Theater Prize DER FAUST (2023) for “A Plot, A Scandal,” the Tabori Award (2021), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2018) and the Bessie Award (2017).
In 2025, Ligia Lewis is Artist in Focus of the Berliner Festspiele.
Press Contact
Sara Franke, Anna Hinz
+49 30 254 89 269 / 132
presse@berlinerfestspiele.de