Dune Dance Festival Brings Folktronica to Jordan’s Wadi Rum This May

In the lunar-like expanse of Wadi Rum, Jordan’s landmark desert valley, the Dune Dance Festival: Folktronica Edition is set to return from May 1st to 3rd, 2025. The festival is a deep dive into cultural memory and future soundscapes, inviting artists to reinterpret Levantine and Bedouin folklore through the lens of electronic music.

The lineup includes standout names like Zenobia from Palestine, whose high-octane dabke-electronic hybrid has made the duo a regional festival favourite, alongside Syrian electronic fusion group SHARAKE, Lebanese folk-electronica trio Joozoor, and a slate of emerging Jordanian producers including TAYAR, SJK.EKO, and Yazan Saryrah. These artists will remix and rework traditional Levantine motifs with modular synths, live instrumentation, field recordings, and heavy percussive bass lines.

The festival’s performances will take place against the dramatic sandstone backdrop of Wadi Rum, known globally for its Martian landscapes and Bedouin cultural legacy. Artists have been encouraged to incorporate these surroundings into their performances, making space for site-specific installations, ambient soundscapes, and performances that reflect the terrain.

Guests can stay in desert campsites run by local Bedouin communities, offering traditional Jordanian meals and guided experiences through the desert. Beyond music, the festival will feature daytime movement workshops, guided meditations, and storytelling circles that explore the oral and sonic traditions of the region.

Dune Dance began as a series of pop-up events during the COVID-19 pandemic, growing organically into a festival model that bridges experimental music with site-specific curation and cultural preservation. Its 2025 edition builds on this momentum by platforming Arab artists who blend heritage with futurism.

Tickets and camping packages are now available through the ETathkara website.