Baku International Arts Festival

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

“Without a past, there is no future.”

Saudi artist Manal AlDowayan shares the inspiration behind Thikra: Night of Remembering, presented by Akram Khan Company at BIAF 2026.

Discover the story of memory, heritage and tradition in her interview with AzerNEWS.

🔗 https://t.co/23kCd0i4ZT

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Join internationally acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan and leading Saudi contemporary artist Manal AlDowayan for a Public Talk at Gazelli Art House Baku, part of the BIAF Collateral Programme.

They will discuss Thikra: Night of Remembering, featured in BIAF’s main programme, for which AlDowayan served as Visual Director, creating the scenography and costumes and co-developing the narrative concept with Khan.

The conversation will also explore AlDowayan’s work in Everything Folds, Unfolds, Refolds, a group exhibition curated by Auronda Scalera and Dr Alfredo Cramerotti at Gazelli Art House Baku, running until December 20. Featuring Manal AlDowayan, Sophia Al-Maria, Aziza Kadyri, Raya Kassisieh, Almagul Menlibayeva and Elnara Nasirli, the exhibition explores how histories, materials and cultural knowledge survive through transformation. Bringing together practices rooted across Central Asia, the Gulf and their diasporas, the works reveal connections between inherited techniques, ecological histories, technological systems and the body.

See you in Baku!

📍 Gazelli Art House Baku
🗓 October 31 | 17:00
🔗 https://t.co/TGMHAOAAvm

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

BAKU INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
IS BACK FOR SEASON TWO

A new season of extraordinary performances, world-class artists and unforgettable artistic experiences awaits in Baku.

[Yana @max_yana]

A little glimpse into the project that's been keeping me busy lately.

More to come...

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

A special tribute to a remarkable composer and his connection to Baku. Thank you for sharing!

[Yana @max_yana]

This year, Baku International Arts Festival dedicates its 2026 edition to Dmitri Shostakovich, marking the 120th anniversary of his birth and celebrating his deep ties to Azerbaijan.

Baku isn't just the setting, it's part of the story.

In 1934, Shostakovich performed his own Piano Concerto No. 1 at Baku's Philharmonic Hall, the very venue where BIAF opens this year.

His influence reached generations of Azerbaijani composers, including Gara Garayev and Jovdat Hajiyev, who studied with him. And his Tenth Symphony has a remarkable connection to Elmira Nazirova, the Azerbaijani pianist and composer who was his student.

BIAF brings these connections to life.

The First Concerto returns to the Philharmonic Hall, while the Tenth Symphony is performed alongside William Kentridge's Oh To Believe in Another World.

28 October ��� 8 November 2026
https://t.co/oqIuYHNSCD

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

@max_yana 🙏🏻❤️

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

@max_yana 🙏🏻❤️

[Yana @max_yana]

This year, Baku International Arts Festival dedicates its 2026 edition to Dmitri Shostakovich, marking the 120th anniversary of his birth and celebrating his deep ties to Azerbaijan.

Baku isn't just the setting, it's part of the story.

In 1934, Shostakovich performed his own Piano Concerto No. 1 at Baku's Philharmonic Hall, the very venue where BIAF opens this year.

His influence reached generations of Azerbaijani composers, including Gara Garayev and Jovdat Hajiyev, who studied with him. And his Tenth Symphony has a remarkable connection to Elmira Nazirova, the Azerbaijani pianist and composer who was his student.

BIAF brings these connections to life.

The First Concerto returns to the Philharmonic Hall, while the Tenth Symphony is performed alongside William Kentridge's Oh To Believe in Another World.

28 October – 8 November 2026
https://t.co/oqIuYHNSCD

[Yana @max_yana]

A little glimpse into the project that's been keeping me busy lately.

More to come...

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

🏎 From the racing circuit to the arts circuit.

As Formula 1 leaves the streets of Baku, the city is getting ready for another major international event.

From 28 October to 8 November, Baku International Arts Festival brings together theatre, dance, classical music and contemporary art, with artists and companies from around the world.

This year’s programme includes Akram Khan Company, English National Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Lev Dodin’s The Seagull, Dmitry Krymov and Gesher Theatre, Maxim Vengerov, William Kentridge’s interpretation of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, and more.

The same city, a new circuit — this time connecting Baku’s theatres, concert halls and cultural landmarks.

https://t.co/yOAZKgBhkm

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

🎬 Billboard Africa just spotlighted William Kentridge's "Oh To Believe in Another World" - his multimedia response to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 - as it heads to BIAF 2026.

Built from charcoal, torn paper, and cardboard maquettes, performed live with a full orchestra under Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

Read more: https://t.co/0hYBdE5aM0

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

The New Earth performance by the House of Dance Company traces humanity’s journey - from primal instinct to a future nobody has seen yet.

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Shahar Binyamini’s New Earth / Bolero X arrives in Baku!

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

In 1909, Serge de Diaghilev brought his Ballets Russes to Paris for the first time - then made Monte-Carlo his creative home for the next two decades. From the Principality, he reformed ballet in every dimension, reshaping the art form as the world knew it. When he died in 1929, the company dissolved, resurfaced under different names, and finally disappeared completely in 1951.

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo was reborn in 1985, founded under the patronage of H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover - first led by Ghislaine Thesmar and Pierre Lacotte, then Jean-Yves Esquerre.

Since 1993, the company has been shaped by Jean-Christophe Maillot, who transformed it into one of the leading forces in contemporary ballet. A dancer himself before an injury redirected his path, Maillot trained under John Neumeier at the Hamburg Ballet before turning to choreography - and has spent more than 30 years building a repertoire that resists easy categories. Neither strictly classical nor contemporary, his work includes more than 40 original ballets - among them Roméo et Juliette, Cendrillon, La Belle, and LAC - with pieces now performed by major companies around the world, from American Ballet Theatre to Teatro alla Scala.

Maillot has also opened the company's doors to other voices, inviting choreographers like William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to create alongside him - and in 2000, founded the Monaco Dance Forum, an international showcase uniting dance in all its forms. By 2011, festival, company, and academy stood united under one artistic vision, based entirely in Monaco.

Carrying forward a lineage that helped reshape ballet itself, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo brings its singular artistic world to Baku. Don't miss it!

🩰 Nov 7 | The Heydar Aliyev Palace
🎟 Get your tickets NOW! https://t.co/lEYxsgAwXQ

See you in Baku!

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Applications are now open!

If you’d like to join the BIAF 2026 volunteer team, please submit your application through the form on our website: https://t.co/qrPygQejCU

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Akram Khan - one of the most visionary choreographers of our time and one of the defining artists of BIAF 2026.

Khan has created a new universe by merging ancient tradition and modern dance.

Born in London in 1974 to a Bangladeshi family, Akram’s life in dance began quite early. He started dancing at three and was immersed in classical Kathak by age of seven under master Pratap Pawar. At 13 - an age when most kids are navigating middle school plays - he was cast in Peter Brook’s legendary international production of The Mahabharata, touring stages across the globe.

Years later, enter the contemporary dance. Instead of choosing between classical and contemporary Khan brought them together until the distinction began to fade. What emerged was something entirely of his own: a language unlike anyone else’s.

The world took notice. His journey has earned him two Laurence Olivier Awards, a Bessie Award in New York, an MBE for services to dance, and a long-standing role as Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells. He brought his vision to over a billion people during the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, and his radical reimagining of Giselle for the English National Ballet is now widely regarded as a modern masterpiece.

Icons across every medium have sought to collaborate with him - from Sylvie Guillem, Juliette Binoche, and Anish Kapoor to Antony Gormley, Steve Reich, Kylie Minogue, and Florence + the Machine.

At the center of his work stand two pivotal achievements: Kaash, an early, thunderous breakthrough created alongside Anish Kapoor and Nitin Sawhney, and Desh, an intimate solo exploring his father’s memory and his Bangladeshi heritage - a deeply personal tour de force that earned him an Olivier and set a new standard for storytelling on stage.

As the Financial Times beautifully put it, he is an artist "who speaks tremendously of tremendous things." His work holds the rare power to feel epic and intensely intimate, personal and universal, all in the same breath. This fall, Akram Khan Company comes to the Baku International Arts Festival with Thikra: Night of Remembering.

See you in Baku!

🗓️ 31.10-01.11
📍 Baku

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

✨ Pre-sale registration for BIAF is still open

Register now to be among the first to know the moment ticket sales go live

Don’t let the moment pass you by 👉 https://t.co/3bp4JojyPB

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Something special BIAF 2026🩰

For Bolero X, choreographer Shahar Binyamini will work closely with local dancers in Baku, integrating into his large-scale production built around the power of collective movement…

Up to fifty dancers moving as one organism - international vision meets Baku’s local dance scene on stage

November 5-6
BIAF 2026

[Baku International Arts Festival @BIAF2026]

Looks like you’ll need to reroute this fall to Baku, for the 2nd season of Baku International Arts Festival (BIAF)

For anyone who loves theatre, dance, music or contemporary art:

Akram Khan, Lev Dodin, William Kentridge, Dmitry Krymov, Shahar Binyamini, Maxim Vengerov and many more…

Twelve days of the best in arts
One vibrant city!

October 28 – November 8

See you in Baku!