Glittery party spotlights Saudi era of 'extreme openness'

It was billed as the Middle East's biggest party -- thousands of revellers bathed in flashing laser lights danced and swayed to blasting music in the unlikeliest of venues: Saudi Arabia.

The three-day MDL Beast last weekend was the biggest festival ever hosted by the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom -- where hardliners have long branded music as sinful -- as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pursues a taboo-busting modernisation drive.

Touted by some as Saudi Arabia's Woodstock, it was not just a lineup of global DJs -- from South Africa's Black Coffee, Dutch star Martin Garrix, and France's David Guetta -- that tested the limits of the kingdom's cultural revolution.

On the barren desert plot near Riyadh that was transformed into what seemed like an open-air nightclub, women -- many unveiled and sporting glittery face paint and some even shedding their obligatory abaya robes -- danced alongside men.

Also turning heads in a country notorious for gender segregation and an austere dress code was a female aerialist in a figure-hugging leotard, shimmying up a rope in a balloon-shaped cage.

Suspended in mid-air over a crowd was a sloshing glass pool with four female aquatic dancers doing synchronised acts in skin-tight attire.

Just last year, the head of General Entertainment Authority (GEA) was fired after a conservative backlash against a circus featuring women wearing similar costumes.

But that seems like a distant memory.

"We grew up with mutawa (religious police) warning us: 'A good man prays, does not party, does not listen to music'," Saleh al-Najar, a 30-year-old information technology worker, said over the din of revelry.

"Now everything has changed."