Riyahiyat: Sana El Azzi and Caline Nassif Turn Storytelling Into a Celebration of Women

 

For Sana El Azzi and Caline Nassif, storytelling has long been at the heart of their work. Through Highways Arabia, the two producers built their creative language across television and digital platforms, but with Riyahiyat, they wanted to take that storytelling into a more immediate space: the stage.

Held on 28 August at Abu Dhabi’s Cultural Foundation to coincide with Emirati Women’s Day, Riyahiyat marked Highways Arabia’s first large-scale public event. Led by Tunisian artist Lamia Al-Riahi, with the participation of Coral Al-Arab and musicians based in Abu Dhabi, the evening brought together Arabic music, nostalgia and collective participation in a concept conceived “by women and for women.”

“For years, we have created stories for television and digital platforms,” El Azzi and Nassif explain. “With Riyahiyat, we wanted to take that storytelling beyond the screen and create something that could unfold live, where the audience would not simply watch the story, but help shape it.”

The idea first emerged after the producers discovered Lamia Riahi online and were struck by the way she transformed Tarab into a shared experience. “There was something spontaneous and deeply emotional in the connection she created with women through music,” they recall. “We felt that this intimacy could become the foundation of a much larger live experience.”

That sense of intimacy became central to Riyahiyat. Rather than creating a conventional concert, El Azzi and Nassif wanted women to feel free to sing, laugh, remember and celebrate without self-consciousness. “Made by women and for women was not simply a slogan,” they say. “We wanted every woman in the theatre to feel that the evening had been considered from her perspective.”

The programme moved across generations of Arabic music, from Warda and Abdel Halim Hafez to Umm Kulthum, Hussain Al Jassmi, Samira Said, Majida El Roumi and Nazem Al-Ghazali, encouraging women of different ages and backgrounds to sing together. “We hoped they would leave feeling joyful, lighter and connected, not only to the music, but also to one another,” the producers say. “For a few hours, the theatre became a shared, intimate space where nobody felt like a stranger.”

Launching the project in Abu Dhabi was also deeply personal. The city is where El Azzi and Nassif established Highways Arabia and received some of their earliest professional opportunities. “It is a city that trusted us professionally and became an essential part of our journey,” they explain. Presenting Riyahiyat on Emirati Women’s Day therefore felt both like a celebration and a gesture of gratitude. “As Arab women who have built an important part of their lives and careers in the UAE, we wanted to honour the occasion in the way we know best: by creating a thoughtful, beautifully produced experience that places women, not symbolically, but genuinely, at its heart.”

Perhaps the evening’s most distinctive element was the relationship between the performers and the audience. The producers had carefully designed the repertoire as a crescendo, expecting women to gradually become comfortable enough to participate. Instead, the response came almost instantly.

“From the very first song, the women began singing and responding to Lamia. The connection was immediate,” they say. “We still get goosebumps remembering that first moment, because it was when something we had imagined for months suddenly became real.” For El Azzi and Nassif, that reaction confirmed the essence of the concept: “The women did not wait for permission to become part of the evening. They instinctively understood what Riyahiyat was meant to be and claimed their place within it.” 

The Abu Dhabi launch is intended as the beginning of a larger journey. Future editions are already being explored across the Arab world, although the producers are clear that expansion will not mean simply reproducing the same concert in each city. “The essence of Riyahiyat, Lamia, Tarab, participation and the intimate relationship between the stage and the women in the audience, must remain,” they explain, while each edition should also reflect the musical memory and cultural character of its location.

Their ambitions also extend beyond Riyahiyat, with plans to develop new original live experiences around remarkable women and their talents. “We do not believe that art and culture should feel distant or elitist,” El Azzi and Nassif say. “They can be artistically ambitious while remaining warm, accessible and deeply enjoyable.”