From October 28 to November 8, 2026, the capital of Azerbaijan will once again transform into the epicenter of the global art world, welcoming the Baku International Arts Festival, APA reports.
This large-scale, multi-genre festival, held annually since 2025, will bring together key figures of the contemporary international scene, including artists, choreographers, dancers, musicians, acclaimed performers, and directors.
The festival's theatrical program will open with the acclaimed production of The Seagull, directed by Lev Dodin and based on the play by Anton Chekhov. This recent premiere by the Maly Drama Theatre – Theatre of Europe (St. Petersburg, Russia), which has been honored with the prestigious Golden Sofit and Golden Mask awards, will be performed on October 29 and 30 on the stage of the Azerbaijan State Academic Musical Theatre. The outstanding director has been associated with Chekhov’s dramaturgical legacy for many years, and this performance is a non-trivial, deep reading of the classics, where Chekhov's reflections on art and life are woven into the fabric of the play. Truly magnificent is the ensemble of actors with whom Dodin creates another Chekhovian universe: Igor Chernevich as Trigorin, Elizaveta Boyarskaya — who created a complex, spectacular, and unusual image of Arkadina — Sergey Kuryshev as Sorin, Anna Zavtur as Zarechnaya, Evgeny Zayfrid as Treplev, Oleg Ryazantsev as Medvedenko, and Polina Sevastianikhina as Masha. The metaphorical scenography of one of the most significant artists of the contemporary scene, Alexander Borovsky — the image of the lake stage and swaying boats — embodies Chekhov’s sense of the fragility of human existence. In Dodin’s words, The Seagull is specifically dedicated to people of art and life in art: “Suddenly it became important that we are talking about artists — about those who feel life particularly acutely and react to it in their own way, but each time, I would say, fervently. This is to an even higher degree about ourselves, about our circle of reflections today, about our questions, our responsibility and irresponsibility.”
Immediately following The Seagull, the festival audience will experience another fresh interpretation of world literary classics on the very same stage. On November 1 and 2, the famous Gesher Theatre (Tel Aviv, Israel) will present a new production by Dmitry Krymov, one of the most influential directors of his generation. Krymov’s theatre thrives on the laws of imagination and play — a dangerous, wonderfully absurd kind of play that remains deeply grounded in reality. The production Bloody Mary, first performed in June 2026, is neither a stage adaptation nor an illustration of Friedrich Schiller’s famous drama Mary Stuart, which inspired it. Instead, it creates an entirely new artistic world constructed from the fragments of a tragic plot, from our shared memory of it, and contemporary realities, in which Mary Stuart becomes a springboard for serious reflection. The main characters, performed by Sasha Demidov (Queen Elizabeth) and Evgenia Dodina (Mary Stuart), are fictional, grotesque, almost circus-like. They are people-symbols who come to life and take on flesh and blood right before our eyes. The masks crack, clowning gives way to confession, and abstract images become living human bodies. In Krymov’s theatre, the comical constantly coexists with the tragic, in which play becomes both a form of existence and a means of navigating our tangled lives.
Equally compelling will be the productions presented on the stage of the Azerbaijan State Academic National Drama Theatre. On November 5 and 6, world-renowned choreographer Shahar Binyamini, who emerged from the legendary Batsheva Dance Company and the school of Ohad Naharin, will combine two of his significant works — New Earth and Bolero X — into a single evening. New Earth is a hypnotic, almost primal experience in which the dancers’ crawling movements coalesce into organic, continuously disintegrating patterns. The piece premiered in 2025 at the Bregenzer Frühling festival in Austria. Bolero X is Binyamini’s reimagining of Ravel’s famous iconic score. Originally created in 2023 for Ballet BC (Ballet British Columbia) in Vancouver, it has evolved into a massive ensemble work — featuring up to 50 dancers moving simultaneously to explore the tension between individuality and collective power through Ravel’s relentless crescendo. Binyamini brings an impeccable global reputation to this staging, having created works for premier companies such as the Paris Opera, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and the Bordeaux National Ballet.
One of the core principles of this year’s BIAF is the close collaboration between world-class visionaries who shape the cultural agenda and the artists of Azerbaijan. As part of this initiative, Shahar Binyamini will personally select and mentor dancers from the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Baku Choreography Academy. Through intensive training sessions, he will directly integrate these young performers into the stagings at the Baku festival.
The second multi-genre Baku International Arts Festival (BIAF), held with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan, will be memorable with more than 20 events of various genres across Baku’s finest venues. Among them are concerts, ballet and theatrical productions, film screenings, artist talks, and masterclasses. This grand celebration of the arts will unite artists and creative companies from Azerbaijan, Canada, France, Israel, Monaco, Russia, the UK, the USA, and other countries.
The detailed BIAF 2026 program and event tickets will be available on the official festival website: http://biaf.az/
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