The Avignon Festival – one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious performing arts events – celebrated its 79th edition in July 2025 with a special focus on the Arabic language as guest of honour. For the first time in its 79-year history, the festival’s programme prominently featured performances in Arabic, showcasing artists from across the Arab world. Amid this culturally rich setting in southeastern France, Saudi Arabia’s Theater and Performing Arts Commission made its inaugural appearance at Festival Off Avignon, marking a historic moment of Saudi-French cultural exchange.
Festival Off Avignon 2025: a historic stage embraces Arabic
Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, the Avignon Festival (Festival d’Avignon) has grown into a cornerstone of global theatre and live performance. Every July, hundreds of thousands of spectators descend on Avignon – the storied “City of Popes” – to attend both the official Festival d’Avignon and the sprawling Festival Off Avignon fringe events that fill its streets and venues.
It is important to note that these are two distinct festivals. The Festival d’Avignon is the official, curated festival with a central programme, often taking place in historical venues such as the Palais des Papes. In contrast, the Festival Off Avignon, which began in 1966, is an open-access fringe festival featuring independent companies from around the world and is known for its vibrancy and diversity of productions. Although the two festivals run concurrently and overlap geographically, they operate independently.
In 2025, Arabic was invited as the language of honour – a bold initiative by Festival d’Avignon director Tiago Rodrigues – celebrating linguistic diversity and bridging cultural divides. Previous editions had spotlighted languages like English and Spanish, but this time Arabic took centre stage, recognising its status as the world’s fifth most spoken tongue – and the second most spoken in France.
Due to the shared themes, some media sources have confused the two festivals, mistakenly attributing Saudi Arabia’s participation to the official Festival d’Avignon rather than the fringe Festival Off Avignon. In fact, the Saudi programme took place entirely under the auspices of Festival Off Avignon.
Saudi Arabia’s first participation at Festival Off Avignon
Against this backdrop, Saudi Arabia’s Theater and Performing Arts Commission concluded an impactful debut at Festival Off Avignon, running from July 14 to 22. It was the Commission’s first official presence at the event, and it seized the opportunity to present a comprehensive Saudi artistic experience aligned with the festival’s Arabic theme. Over the course of the week, the Saudi delegation staged an ambitious programme of 128 performances across multiple disciplines. This included daily showcases of four traditional Saudi art forms – Al-Khatwah, Al-Liwa, the Wadi Al-Dawasir Ardah, and Al-Khubaiti – along with one contemporary Saudi play: The Hoop – Le Collier by Ahmed Albun Himdah. The Commission’s pavilion effectively became a window into the Kingdom’s heritage and modern creativity, drawing curious festivalgoers into Saudi culture.
Arabic as guest language: a natural alignment
The Saudi initiative aligned naturally with Festival Off Avignon’s Arabic focus. By contributing Arabic-language performances and folklore, Saudi Arabia helped realise the festival’s vision of cultural dialogue. The Commission noted that the festival provided “a fitting platform for showcasing the richness of Saudi cultural expressions” at a time when Arabic was in the spotlight. The strong turnout and interest from French and international audiences underscored the growing global appetite for Saudi arts and stories.
Showcasing Saudi heritage through traditional arts
A major component of Saudi Arabia’s presence was a vibrant showcase of traditional dances and musical performances, which ran multiple times each day in the courtyard of Avignon’s Musée Angladon. Billed as “The Saudi Performing Arts,” this segment offered festival audiences a “sensory journey” across the Kingdom’s diverse regions. Four great traditional dances were highlighted, each introduced with context about its origins and cultural significance:
Al-Liwah: A communal dance with powerful percussion and the hypnotic sound of the surnay (flute), rooted in Gulf maritime culture. Performed in a circle, it unleashes “a collective dance of raw energy.” Originating among Afro-Arab seafaring communities, Al-Liwah showcases the historical influence of African rhythms on the Arabian Peninsula.
Al-Khubaiti: A festive, colourful dance from Saudi’s coastal communities (especially around the Red Sea). It draws spectators into a lively seaside atmosphere with call-and-response kasrah singing, the string melodies of the simsimiyyah (lyre), and bright traditional costumes. This upbeat folkloric dance – also spelled Khabiti – features distinctive turns and drops, and is especially associated with Hijazi port cities like Jeddah.
Al-Khatwah: Often called the “Southern Step,” this is a celebratory stepping dance from the mountainous Aseer region in southern Saudi Arabia. Dancers move in synchronised rows, coordinating graceful hand, foot, and head movements to a steady drumbeat. Romantic Nabati poetry is chanted in tandem, giving the performance an elegant, poetic character. The dance’s simple yet captivating steps—performed with swords or daggers in some variants—have even become a social media sensation for their beauty and inclusivity across ages.
Ardah (Wadi Al-Dawasir variant): A local form of the famed Saudi sword dance (Ardah) from the Najd region’s Wadi Al-Dawasir valley. It embodies an ancestral warrior spirit, with rows of men in traditional dress carrying swords and singing poetry in unison. Accompanied by martial drums and tabl beats, the performers brandish their swords in rhythm, answering the calls of a poet-chanter. This powerful display – inscribed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity – “resonates with […] martial drums, glittering swords, and powerful chants.”
Performers from Saudi Arabia showcased these traditional dances during the Festival Off Avignon’s “Saudi Performing Arts” segment, offering French audiences a window into the Kingdom’s heritage. Each of these performances was met with curiosity and enthusiasm by festival crowds. Staged in an open-air courtyard setting, the shows encouraged audience engagement – visitors clapped along to drum rhythms, and some even joined impromptu dance lines. The programme was purposefully designed to be “accessible to all audiences.” Before each routine, Saudi troupe members gave a short introduction about the dance’s history, ensuring the cultural context was shared. The live musical accompaniment (from booming drums to reed flutes and chanting) created an immersive atmosphere that one local newspaper described as “un voyage sensoriel en Arabie saoudite” – a sensory journey to Saudi Arabia. Over the festival week, a total of 128 such traditional performances were delivered, reflecting the Commission’s commitment to highlighting the rich diversity of Saudi heritage on the world stage.
The Hoop – Le Collier: Saudi contemporary theatre makes a mark
In addition to folklore, Saudi Arabia brought contemporary theatre to Avignon in the form of The Hoop – Le Collier, written by Ahmed Albun Himdah and directed by Fahd Al-Dosari.
Performed in Arabic with French subtitles, the play unfolds in a nameless office where a group of employees find themselves trapped in a time loop.
Oscillating between frustration, revolt and despair, the absurdist narrative gradually shifts toward tragedy, questioning our relationship to work, hierarchy and identity. Styled as an immersive, contemporary huis clos, the production portrayed the alienation of modern work life with raw honesty.
The cast featured Khalid Al-Hwaidi, Fatima Al-Jashi, Marwa Al-Shafi’i, Abdulaziz Al-Zayani, Ahmed Althikrallah, and Shihab Shihab. The technical team included Mahmoud Al-Safadi (stage manager), Faisal Alabid (scenography), Abdulallah Bouqrasin (lighting design), and Mohammed Alhamd (sound design). Production was by Hamd Al-Muwaijd with administration by Naif Al-Duailej.
The play received a warm response, and helped reinforce the growing relevance of Saudi contemporary theatre within international settings.
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