Perform Sharjah returns this autumn with a programme of commissioned works, world premieres and regional debuts at venues across the emirate.
The festival, running from October 11 to November 29 and organised by Sharjah Art Foundation, features 16 performances, all free to attend.
Among those to look forward to are theatre pieces that put the audience at the centre of the action, works newly commissioned for Bait Al Serkal, hip-hop performances challenging dance traditions and perceptions of the body, multimedia work, large-scale puppetry and pieces drawing on personal and family histories.
Here are some of the shows to look out for.
1. Every-Body-Knows-What-Tomorrow-Brings-And-We-All-Know-What-Happened-Yesterday: October 11 at Africa Hall
Tunisian dancer Mohamed Toukabri's career is built as much on hip-hop and street dance as contemporary styles.
His latest solo brings these different styles together in a piece questioning the value of inheritance in dance: what dancers receive from previous generations and what they choose to leave behind.
8.30pm
2. Work.txt: October 18 at Poetry House
The audience is the protagonist in British playwright Nathan Ellis's work.txt. Once the crowd is seated, they clock in and take on a series of individual and collaborative tasks from which the plot gradually emerges, following a person in an unnamed city who has stopped working.
Premiering at London's Yard Theatre in 2019, work.txt has since been presented in nine countries and 11 languages, with Sharjah marking its GCC premiere.
8.30pm
3. Do You Know This Song?: October 25 at Sharjah Performing Arts Academy
Performer and singer Mallika Taneja leads this piece, based on a year of interviews used to reconstruct the story of a singer whose voice was at risk of being forgotten. Surrounded by a harmonium, microphone and objects from her childhood, she pieces together fragments of ambition and disappointment from the singer's life, with music as central to the performance as the spoken word.
8.30pm
4. Us: October 31 at Cultural Palace
A six-metre bench runs along the front edge of the stage in Maria Hassabi's Us, with five dancers working within that narrow strip of space.
The set-up reflects a choreography built around calculated tableaus, with the dancers shifting between rest and anticipation.
8.30pm
5. Perhaps Here: November 6 to 8 at Bait Al Serkal
Perhaps Here is a suite of commissioned performances at Bait Al Serkal over three evenings.
The works have been created with the 19th-century heritage house in mind and the programme comprises short, intimate presentations spanning theatre and performance.
Full details are still to be revealed, but the performances are said to deal with memory and grief.
8.30pm
6. Hannibaby and Zarafa: November 13 and 15 at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi
Sebastian Mayer brings two life-size animal puppets to Sharjah for a two-part show.
For Hannibaby, Mayer built a life-size baby elephant puppet and travelled 70km with it from France into Italy through the Cottian Alps.
In Sharjah, the elephant will appear as a roaming performance around Bait Obaid Al Shamsi. Families can also join mask-making workshops, movement games and other puppetry activities linked to the show.
For Zarafa, Mayer built a life-size giraffe puppet that in 2023 made a 1,000km journey from Marseille to Paris, following the route taken by the real giraffe sent by Muhammed Ali Pasha of Egypt to France's Charles X in 1827.
In Sharjah, Zarafa will also move through the venue as a walkabout performance, while visitors can add their own work to a community canvas at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi.
November 13, 4.30pm to 8.30pm; November 15, 4pm to 8pm
7. Longings, Returns: November 22 at Khalid Bin Mohammed School
Sim Chi Yin's Longings, Returns grew from a decade-long effort to recover the history of her paternal grandfather.
Rarely discussed at home, he was among more than 30,000 people deported from British-ruled Malaya to China between 1948 and 1960, and was executed shortly after arriving, while his mother, wife and five children remained in Malaya.
The multimedia work is as much research as family testimony, with Sim activating the installation through a series of ritual gestures.
8.30pm
8. XXL: November 29 at Khalid Bin Mohammed School
Dancer and choreographer Sofiane Chalal's XXL uses hip-hop to challenge assumptions about how larger bodies should look and move on stage.
Carried by humour, the choreography is at once forceful, light and celebratory, with the performers' spontaneity and individual personalities given room to emerge.
8.30pm
