NNA - Omar Rajeh & Maqamat proudly announce the world premiere of Dance People at the Edinburgh International Festival, which took place in August 2025.
Each August, Edinburgh becomes the stage for one of the world's largest cultural gatherings, with over 49,000 performances across its many festivals and venues. In this extraordinary landscape, Dance People stood out as one of the highlights of the Edinburgh International Festival 2025 edition. The performance was not only met with enthusiastic public response—it also opened this year's Kunstfest Weimar in Germany.
Prior to its premiere, Dance People had already garnered critical acclaim—winning the prestigious Écart Pomaret Prize for outstanding contemporary creation and being shortlisted for the FEDORA Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for Ballet, in recognition of its bold artistic vision and international significance.
This performance also marked a historic moment in the Festival's 78-year history: Dance People is the first-ever live performance by a Lebanese and Arab dance company to be co-produced and presented at the Edinburgh International Festival since its founding in 1947.
After its summer premieres, the company is preparing a 2026 European tour with performances in Switzerland, France, Italy, and Germany.
Dance People is a festive, deeply critical creation that places community at the heart of choreographic expression. Blending dance, music, architecture, and storytelling, the performance brings together ten dancers, a visual artist, and two musicians live on stage. The original score, composed by Mathias Delplanque and Ziad El Ahmadie, is performed live and features the voice of renowned Lebanese singer Abdul Karim Chaar.
The ensemble on stage reflects the richness of global collaboration, with artists coming from France, Lebanon, Italy, Germany, Belgium, South Korea, Central Africa, the UK, and the Netherlands. This diversity is not just geographic—it shapes the performance's artistic, cultural, and political depth, echoing Dance People's commitment to shared space, collective expression, and embodied citizenship.
"Dance People is an exuberant act of shared presence. Through letters of human resistance and a choreography that invites audiences to join, the piece becomes both joyful and deeply political; a living act of citizenship." — Omar Rajeh
In a world shaped by algorithms and artificial intelligence, Dance People shifts the focus to gathering, being together, sharing space, and questioning power. It is a work built from the lived experiences of its performers and the intimate stories of its citizens, shared during the performance. Each performance becomes a collective act; unique to the city, the people, and the present moment.
The performance's impact stems not only from its form, but from its format: dancers and audiences share the same space. The architecture of the stage dissolves hierarchies, inviting participation, connection, and movement; a call to presence, co-existence, and joy.
Created by choreographer Omar Rajeh and co-artistic director Mia Habis, Dance People is co-produced by major European festivals and institutions: Edinburgh International Festival, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Festival Aperto / Fondazione I Teatri – Reggio Emilia, Internationales Tanzfestival München, Kunstfest Weimar, and Euro-Scene Leipzig.
The premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival stands as a powerful moment—not only artistically, but politically and symbolically. It affirms the presence of diverse voices and bodies on one of the world's most prestigious cultural stages.
