Despite the fact that contemporary dance in Morocco is a relatively recent phenomenon, with the first dance companies and training programs emerging in the early 2000s, participation in the art form has grown considerably in the past five to seven years. Today dozens of young people undergo contemporary dance training in the main urban areas of the country. There are many established artistic directors and dance companies, several international contemporary dance festivals held annually, and a handful of dance studio locations that offer classes, workshops, and performance opportunities. Despite this expansion of interest in the art form, including significant national media attention, contemporary dance in Morocco remains a highly controversial activity. Dancers, choreographers, and producers often find themselves at the center of contentious debates regarding proper comportment of the Muslim body in society, most especially concerning dance performances in public spaces. Dancers must contend with social stigma, verbal harassment, and even threats of violence. Regardless, many contemporary dancers self-reflexively see their work as a deliberate cultural project: they state that their goals are to represent their Moroccan identity and Muslim faith via their artistic expression on both local and global stages.
This article focuses on the process that occurs before dancers are exposed to audiences in performance, in what they refer to as the “transformation” of self through dance training. It specifically discusses the intensive workshop programs that go on behind studio walls, where young Moroccans have their first encounters with contemporary dance; this article examines how this shapes not only their movement choices but also their formation of a new cultural identity. I will specifically discuss the outreach of free contemporary dance training programs where master teachers, who are mostly based in Europe, give intensive workshops in Casablanca and Marrakech to young Moroccans over several weeks or months. I argue that emerging from these encounters is the theme of “searching for the soul through dance” as a means to represent “authentic Moroccanness” to audiences, colleagues, producers, and others engaged with the global arts market. By following the pedagogical dialogue between master teachers and novice students, the development of the dancers' skills during workshops as well as the discursive construction of their artistry through one-on-one interviews, this article traces dancers' efforts to embody a choreographic lexicon that presents them as pious Muslims who are reviving cultural traditions while expanding artistic boundaries in their society. I do not contend that contemporary dancers represent all Moroccan youth or a political movement at large. Dancers are continually differentiating themselves from the wider public while also offering their own versions of national and religious identity. In this article I argue that they demonstrate the complexity and dynamic changing nature of Moroccan society in contrast to the common stereotypes of Middle Eastern and North African youth as idle, disaffected, or potentially volatile.
The training workshops held for prospective contemporary dancers require a rejection of dance forms that initiates often bring with them, specifically exposure to hip-hop and breakdance; at the same time they must integrate a fractious mix of indigenous spiritual traditions and transnational postmodern techniques into their new practice. Commenting generally on dancing's effects on identity, Sally Ann Ness captures the power of movement to alter self-perception: “No body can learn an unfamiliar neuromuscular pattern without being willing to acquire a new and perhaps startling insight into who it is they actually are” (Ness Reference Ness1992, 4–5). What I propose to capture here is a similar process of “self-discovery” between master teacher and novice student in the contemporary dance workshops of Morocco.
I have been involved in the contemporary dance scene in Morocco for the past fifteen years. This article in particular draws on over eighteen months of my participant-observation fieldwork of contemporary dance classes, workshops, social events, auditions, rehearsals, and performances in the cities of Marrakech and Casablanca from 2012 to 2014.Footnote 1 It explores how novice contemporary dancers learn to embody notions of Moroccan “authenticity,” both individual and collective.Footnote 2 As prelude to the meaning of Moroccan authenticity developed further on, I foreground Eric Hobsbawm's critique that the concept of cultural tradition represents a set of practices “governed overtly or tacitly … which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour [and] to establish continuity with a suitable historical past” (Reference Hobsbawm, Hobsbawm and Granger1983, 1). Hobsbawm's remarks illuminate the governing function of the notion of cultural authenticity embedded in Moroccan contemporary dance: the suitable historical past must exclude European influence, especially French colonial rule, and include ancient rites to which indigeneity is attributed.
In line with Hobsbawm's insight, the process of training Moroccan contemporary dancers resembles what some scholars call “culture making,” a term that alludes to the manufacture of distinct images, such as notions of national “authenticity” to serve political, social, and economic aims in local and global arts markets (Myers Reference Myers, Marcus and Myers1995; Winegar Reference Winegar2006, 18–25). The larger political environment of which Moroccan dancers are a part has been heavily leveraged by neoliberal policies and rhetoric. In effect, this is a discourse that works in the arts to highlight a concept of the independent artist making a future through the use of his or her entrepreneurial freedom. In Morocco, these ideas have taken hold amidst limited state support for the arts. Economic power has flowed into the guiding hand of privately held international institutions, such as the World Bank, that seek to control the production of culture in that country (Harvey Reference Harvey2005; Spadola Reference Spadola2014).
Dance scholars Susan Manning (Reference Manning1993, Reference Manning2004), Sally Ann Ness (Reference Ness1992), and Susan Reed (Reference Reed1998, Reference Reed2010) argue that the construction of national identity and ethnic belonging are central to historical work and anthropological theories of dance, especially in the context of struggles to establish political direction. In the case of Morocco, dancers are, in effect, “making culture” according to neoliberal policies but within a regional context fraught with ideological divides. For example, despite the fact that many Moroccans see dance as “forbidden” by religious custom, Moroccan dancers strive to choreograph a broad spectrum of practices and beliefs that differ from customary restraints regarding display of the body. Many dancers self-identify as practicing Muslims at the same time that they seek to expand their embodied capacities and opportunities to perform both locally and abroad in Europe. Thus, this article highlights a sector of urban Moroccan youth that constructs its claims to a pious identity and national belonging through contemporary dance in a variety of ways.
Most dancers avoid explicit political and moral categorization, preferring to express their cultural heritage and personal faith through their dancing. In the end, however, dancers find it difficult to avoid politics. Performing in national festivals and other events, Moroccan dance companies have broken with the customary practice of sequestering dance in private spaces and are openly engaged in making their art a socially acceptable public phenomenon in urban centers. Dance performances, especially those in open-air parks and public squares, ignite intense social and political debates about the role of Islam in daily life. Because taboos against dancing are deeply embedded in Moroccan society, I look to contemporary dance workshops to provide a view of the politics and changing forms of Muslim identity in the most unlikely of settings: the dance studio. At a time when considerable misinterpretations about the people of the Middle East and North Africa region preoccupy discussions in international media, this article presents a spectrum of interpretations of embodied religious and cultural practices. My argument—that Moroccan contemporary dance demonstrates the capacity to make culture and to complicate notions of culture—weighs in against the perpetration of essential images of Islam as a monolithic ideology. In addition, the events I narrate here aim to enlarge the scope of existing dance scholarship on the Middle East and North Africa.
Background and Definitions of Terms
Contemporary dance is a practice with a short history in Morocco but a significant and growing following of participants and viewers. Dance in general is not new to Moroccans. There are many different folk and popular dances practiced in various regions of the country, and dancing is common at many social events, such as weddings. Since the early twentieth century there has been interest in “oriental” dancing as well as ballet, and the few conservatories in the country have offered limited programs in both forms for decades (along with the Ballet Théâtre Zinoun, which operated out of Casablanca in the 1970s and 1980s). In the past twenty years many private dance academies have appeared in the large cities, but their classes cater to the elites of Morocco due to high registration fees. Across the population though, families often watch dance entertainment, such as the background to singing competitions, on national TV stations or via satellite shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Bollywood music videos.
Contemporary dance in particular first surfaced in Morocco at the turn of this century. Despite limited exposure to the wider public, there has been a plethora of independent artists, dance companies, and dance studios and performance venues starting up in the country. Two prominent Moroccan dance companies (Cie 2K_far in Casablanca and Cie Anania in Marrakech), pivotal actors in contemporary dance in the region, emerged in the early 2000s. A few years later, dance education programming, funded by the Institut Français and other groups, offered free dance classes to university-age Moroccans. Subsequently, several international contemporary dance festivals have taken place annually in Marrakech and Casablanca (such as On Marche and Action Danse) where dance companies from across the region and Europe perform for free for local audiences. For the purposes of this article and to honor the requested confidentiality of dance instructors and students alike, I have left dance studios anonymous and interlocutors' names have been changed.Footnote 3
When I refer to “contemporary dance” in Morocco, I am translating from the French term danse contemporaine, which is used in Morocco rather than danse moderne (or raqs almuasir in Arabic). This form of dance is defined similarly to the genre of danse contemporaine in France and Europe in general. It is typified in North America by the form of “postmodern dance” (or even performance art) that accentuates the use of social themes and personal narratives to make artistic statements, along with theatrical staging, such as costumes, props, lighting, spoken word, sound, and other technologies. Likewise, the emphasis is on more pedestrian movement, unlike other dance forms that display complicated technique or athletic virtuosity. Due to these factors, contemporary dance is actually a very accessible art form, as initiates are not required to have the same physical training acumen as, say, ballet or modern dancers.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the long and complicated interchanges between contemporary dance events and actors in Europe and Morocco, suffice it to say that criteria for the form are outlined in similar ways on both sides of the Mediterranean: contemporary dance festivals and other performance productions offer the same “genre” of dance programming across national borders. For the more limited purposes of this article I will be focusing only on the dance training that occurs within Morocco in order to highlight the ways that dancers, choreographers, and instructors see their expression of contemporary dance as, in fact, unique to the country. In particular, they see themselves as developing a dance form distinct from dance in Europe in its use of Moroccan cultural traditions and what they call the “authentic” movement of Moroccan dancers.
“Authenticity” arises as a term commonly referred to in contemporary dance workshops in Morocco. While there is a long international genealogy underpinning the concept of authenticity in Western aesthetics, including Kant's eighteenth-century notion of transcendent beauty ([1790] Reference Kant and Bernard1914, 165–220), Foucault's critique of concepts of originality (Reference Foucault and Rabinow1984), and Adorno's extensive analysis of authenticity as it manifests itself in the production of ideology through advertising ([1964] Reference Adorno, Tarnowksi and Will1986), it is used in Moroccan contemporary dance to index several different qualities in contrast to Western aesthetics. Here, authenticity refers to choreographing inner feeling rooted in the connection between the body and mind of the native dancer. Overlapping this idea, authenticity refers to movement that is not an artefact of colonial rule, such as orientalist stereotypes of belly dance or ballet, often interpreted as evidence of the inferiority projected onto Moroccan culture, not only in the Protectorate years (1912–56), but also through a theoretical, postcolonial dependence and imitation on the part of Moroccan artists. Authenticity may also refer to the inclusion of spiritual music and dance of precolonial times such as Gnawa and Sufi trance rituals. These elements highlight Moroccan ideals of ethnic and national identity amid anxieties of the postcolonial influences of Europe.
Throughout this article I also allude to “master” teachers of Moroccan contemporary dance. For the most part, these are individuals who are from Morocco but have undergone dance training in Europe (usually under scholarship at a centre choreographique in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Germany). They often base themselves in a European city from which to tour and teach abroad. Crucial to the career trajectories of these artists is their active participation in contemporary dance expansion in the “blad” (Ar., homeland).Footnote 4 This is achieved through their teaching outreach (as depicted here), in choreographing works for dancers in Morocco, and in bringing dancers from Morocco to perform in their productions in Europe. While master teachers represent a source of embodied knowledge of contemporary dance techniques and compositional methods practiced in Europe at dance schools and arts centers, they have a unique devotion to drawing out the particular talents of Moroccan dancers as practitioners of the “authentic origins” of Moroccan traditions.
Most of the students, on the other hand, are novices with no previous exposure to training in Europe. Rather, their background is in dancing as avid street dancers in their communities: hip hoppers, bboys, poppers, lockers, etc. These practices, especially breakdance, have an enormous following throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In the urban centers of Morocco groups of young men practice in parks, on boulevards, in gyms, and in martial arts centers. They form dance crews in their lower-class and working-class neighborhoods and compete in local dance battles where they must execute virtuosic tricks in order to win competitions. The Ministry of Youth and Sports in Morocco oversees sponsorship of battles and crews as “social development” programming to steer disadvantaged youth away from radicalized religious or criminal activities. Very few Moroccans can afford formal dance classes or academy-level training so the appeal of street dance is clear: it is learned among peers or from Internet videos accessed for free. Similarly contemporary dance training programs are often offered for free, and, uniquely, contemporary dancers are sometimes paid. Therefore, young dancers often turn to contemporary dance as a strategy for accessing a professional career route and, ultimately a viable way of planting at least one foot in the European economy.
Another unique dimension of contemporary dance in Morocco and the MENA region in general is that the majority of dancers are men. In the workshop settings I describe here, eighty to ninety percent of students are male. Although a more in-depth discussion of gender roles is beyond the scope of this article, I will address the core issues pertaining to dance. The first reason for a male demographic is that many contemporary dancers are initiated into the form via a breakdance background (as I described above), a masculinized sport that young men join in peer groups. From their experience as bboys, they may eventually seek out contemporary dance training to further their “professional” development. As Saïd, a dance student featured later in the article, once told me: “Hip hop drew me to a dance practice, but contemporary is what made me un vrai artiste (Fr., a real artist)” (Saïd Reference Saïd2013).
Like Saïd, most male novice dancers who approach contemporary dance training from a street dance background are also from lower-class families. On the other hand, the few women who may have had exposure to other dance forms, such as ballet or oriental dance, usually come from upper-class families who could afford to pay for these classes. In general though, dance is a serious taboo for young women: families worry about the social stigma that mars an unmarried woman's honor (the accusation being that female dancers are promiscuous) and that a woman seen dancing publicly could bring shame to the entire family. Some dancers explained to me that those families who know about and consent to a young woman's dancing usually are more “open-minded.” There are also the women who choose not to tell their families about their dance activities and lie about their whereabouts during classes or rehearsals. Male dancers encounter significant stigma as well: once they depart from street dance and into more contemporary dance work, they often face accusations of homosexuality, including verbal harassment and physical threats (Borni Reference Borni2016).
Another important explanation for a male majority demographic in dance is that women in the region tend to be more focused on their studies and a career trajectory that will require further university education; therefore, they have less free time for outside activities. Young men, on the other hand, often doubt the opportunities further schooling could bring them and tend to pursue employment at a younger age. Many women informed me that dance is their hobby, whereas male dancers often stated that professional dance is their career goal. All of these generalizations, though, do not overshadow the fact that there are several well-established female dancer-choreographers in Morocco and elsewhere in the MENA region. Many of them have garnered acclaim and success across Europe as well. Due to the fact that I am focusing on novice dance workshops my interlocutors in this article are mostly male.Footnote 5
Finally, a common but erroneous assumption about contemporary dancers and performing artists in general in Morocco is that they are all secular. In my research over the past fifteen years though I have noted that the majority of dancers see themselves as practicing and pious Muslims and regularly observe religious fasts and daily prayers. Some even frame their artistry in religious terms. Dancers, for example, referenced Islam as a guiding force in their life, stating that their artistic talent was a “gift from God” and that in Islam artistic expression is revered as a virtue. A dancer named Nabil explained to me: “I feel closer to God when I dance. I think dancers and artists are a unique representation of taking our religion forward and representing it in our cultural traditions as a responsibility. Many who say dancing is haram (Ar., bad, shameful) are just uneducated. We have to educate them about new possibilities” (Nabil Reference Nabil2013). Another dancer, Mohamed, stated, “I turn to dance when I am having problems or strong emotions because it helps me express myself and stay on asirat almustaqim (Ar., the straight path) away from forbidden things like alcohol. It helps me stay focused on a good life” (Mohamed Reference Mohamed2013). Going further, some other dancers even take a more active political positioning against national conservative Islamic movements by making claims such as “They do not represent us, we represent the new Muslim generation” (Rachid Reference Rachid2014).
Encountering New Politics of the Body
Looking to the broader regional context of the Middle East and North Africa upon which my fieldwork on dance workshops has been built, recent writing on film, music, and the visual arts has provided a rich theoretical scaffold to analyze how culture is remade through performance and art exhibition (Abu-Lughod Reference Abu-Lughod2005; Goodman Reference Goodman2005; Hoffman Reference Hoffman2008; Winegar Reference Winegar2006). There are also several studies of dance in the MENA region, namely, belly dancing (Nieuwkerk Reference Nieuwkerk1995; Potuoglu-Cook Reference Potuoglu-Cook2006), Moroccan cabaret and wedding entertainment, and Gnawa rhythmic trance rituals (Kapchan Reference Kapchan1996, Reference Kapchan2007). However, so far, there is no extensive Anglophone research on contemporary dance in the MENA region.Footnote 6 The scholars named above have examined the intersection between spectators and performers to show how artists strive to acquire a higher personal status, register political allegiance, and gain a measure of economic autonomy in the social hierarchies of Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, and Morocco. My field of investigation is different as I focus on the training practices of Moroccan contemporary dancers before they encounter audiences outside of the studio. Here the emphasis is on the change of consciousness novices undergo as they use movement to “search their souls,” revising customary notions of pious conduct and of the role of the body in public life. Throughout, I include the interactions between students and instructors that typified the atmosphere of workshop environments and pedagogical approaches.
One such event occurred on the last day of a weeklong contemporary dance workshop in Casablanca in 2013, where the instructor, Yassine, presented an informal demonstration of the week's work. A small audience of friends, family, and student participants gathered in the studio.
The core exercise Yassine wanted to demonstrate was for dancers to expand upon a single word by creating a short, improvised solo piece. The first performer, Fatah, began his piece in the corner of the makeshift stage area. In the first phrase, he looks up with longing and curiosity, searching the sky for revelation, pointing his index finger to that place above him where his eyes are staring. He draws his hand down to his face, still following the movement with his eyes. “Wahad” (Ar., one), he whispers. Suddenly Fatah propels himself across the floor with great speed, rolling and spinning, jumping upward, finger out in front, indicating again, “wahad,” a principal concept of Islam signifying the existence of only one omniscient God. His hand trembles as his finger dives deep at his ribcage, shaping his body in a concave silhouette. At the next moment, he spins again, going off balance, lunging in all directions until his gaze and finger meet in a moment of stillness. After a calmer, more pedestrian walk, he closes the composition and returns to the same corner of the room where he began. He whispers “wahad” to the group of onlookers who explode in energetic applause as he exits the space (Borni Reference Borni2013).
Fatah's workshop instructor, Yassine, was born and raised in Morocco, but educated and trained in France as a professional dancer. During breaks in the workshop, Yassine gave generously of his time to answer my questions. First, he addressed my query into his Moroccan roots:
Yes, I am interested in my Moroccan identity, but I wish more to project it [through dance] in a way that shows my damir [Ar. Soul]. Myself, I am a believer. … I can really get into our Moroccan religious traditions because there is contact with sounds, movement, and nature, your inner nature to move, to celebrate life.Footnote 7 (Yassine Reference Yassine2013)
Yassine links his Muslim identity to dance. His comments were like those I heard from other guest instructors who are aware that transnational dance permeates Moroccan popular culture, diminishing the value of indigenous art. Thus, instructors train the novice to reject “foreign” styles of movement, such as ballet and street dance, which are often cast as imitative cultural products imported to Morocco from outside the country.Footnote 8 As Yassine put it to another student, “You are in the habit of copying what you see on the Internet” (Borni Reference Borni2013). In response, many novices strive to adopt a choreographic lexicon that is authentic in their instructors' eyes—in short they feel a need to change their lives to learn their craft. I asked Yassine why contemporary dance is attractive to many young, artistically inclined Moroccans. As he responded, Islamic values are central to Morocco's stability:
Some of the Moroccan dancers you met are very pieux [Fr., pious]. And I think you have spoken with them about this identity? They find it as essential to them in their homes and neighbourhoods. But there is still a common identity here, not on the level of going to the mosque, but in the sense that we share Moroccan language, arts and things like that. That's why we have to stick together … otherwise there is trouble for Morocco. (Yassine Reference Yassine2013)
In this dance form, to be viewed as a Moroccan artist—that is, to establish credibility as authentic—one must appear untainted by questionable social and choreographic roots. For Moroccan master teachers, as for the population in general, authenticity is linked to the representation of the heart or soul in its broader social context of family and community (Hoffman Reference Hoffman2008; Kapchan Reference Kapchan1996; Rosen Reference Rosen1984). While this dynamic is discussed in the studio, the teaching I observed in Moroccan contemporary dance workshops actually fuses Euro-American notions of originality (i.e., something new) with the Moroccan concepts of social worthiness or nisba (Ar., reputation) and asala (Ar., place of origin, roots). In some instances, however, there was an acknowledgement of the transnational elements of contemporary dance—the amalgam circulating as a “fusion” of dance traditions.
Master teachers like Yassine accentuate the importance of faith and nation in the dance studio, and they foster a close relationship to novices, whether they are visiting as artists or choreographers who have received European training. Novices look to them for guidance in how to embody a Moroccan identity that is true to Islam while looking toward professional artistic development. Essential to recruitment to novice workshops is the current state of the Moroccan political and moral economies within which dancers struggle for recognition. Again, Yassine was helpful in providing insight:
Contemporary dance draws many young people. … I suggest that it fills a blank space for them … they want to find a solution to this problem of identity when they do not have a real job and are living at home. For me, it was a way to develop in dance. I already felt I was a technical dancer, but with contemporary dance your artistry comes first. … I really locate my centre in these workshops, not in prescriptions for behaviour. … I do think if you are not responsible to your soul and your principles, you can't be a Moroccan artist. (Yassine Reference Yassine2013)
Yassine outlined the elements of the political and moral economies (e.g., personal independence, integrity, and identity) that underpin the decision to participate in contemporary dance. Yet, the qualities of the pious individual and the performance of religious identity among Moroccans have undergone rapid diversification since the destabilizing events of colonialism and the shifting conditions of postcolonial economic and political policy (Combs-Schilling Reference Combs-Schilling1989; Eickelman Reference Eickelman1976; Geertz Reference Geertz1968; Hammoudi Reference Hammoudi1997; Rosen Reference Rosen2002). In the contemporary context, for example, while international producers sponsor dance festivals, the local religious climate calls for restrictions over public display of the body. Thus, contemporary dancers may index several of the moral anxieties of society, heightening their significance as cultural innovators on the urban scene. I will now describe the larger context for this genre in broader political terms that form a backdrop for recruitment and participation of this sector of young, urban Moroccans.
Sociopolitical Conditions and the Moral Economy
Contemporary dancers often cite a range of concerns about the current national political climate, especially referring to the moral spectrum of opinion, which is roughly divided between religiously conservative parties and international factions promoting secularism. In geopolitical terms, Morocco is an important ally for the West's policy agenda to keep the nation in certain alliances. However, tensions within Morocco over the regime's alignment with the West produce a mixed picture of its future. Regulation of conduct in public is a central issue for competing political factions in Morocco as they signal either customary allegiance or a departure from the past. Presently, the monarchy supports contemporary dance by permitting international corporations and arts organizations to sponsor festivals and outreach programs for youth. This has been a pragmatic way to advance the regime's agenda of modernization, moderation in matters of religion, and toleration of Western ethics of conduct. On the other hand, the Islamist movement, and the Justice and Development Party in particular, increased its representation in parliament in 2016, but more recent elections registered a less conservative plurality (Ghafar and Jacobs Reference Ghafar and Jacobs2017). By challenging widely accepted norms of conduct and notions of Moroccan cultural authenticity, contemporary dancers support a midpoint between both ends of a political spectrum the regime is aiming to keep in balance (Howe Reference Howe2005; Sater Reference Sater2011; Spadola Reference Spadola2014).
Another critical factor affecting Moroccan dancers and youth in general is the national unemployment rate, estimated by international economists to be over 40 percent among youth (Bertelsmann Stiftung Reference Stiftung2014: 20). During interviews with dancers in Morocco, a frequent topic of conversation was the lack of opportunities for employment or the lack of the technical education needed to qualify for more lucrative job positions. Most dancers who came to contemporary dance workshops had limited means to pay even for transportation to and from the studio or for other basic needs such as noonday meals. Moroccan contemporary dancers comprise a group of youth struggling for independence, where the values of individual autonomy, family, and marriage place them at a critical juncture: they must exert their own initiative to avoid stagnation and personal failure. But even for those who are motivated by a spirit of independence, competition, and entrepreneurship, only a small minority finds these values actionable (Cohen Reference Cohen2004; Cohen and Jaidi Reference Cohen and Jaidi2006; Cole and Durham Reference Cole, Durham, Cole and Durham2008).
The Moroccan regime's support for artistic initiatives and privatization projects an image of “individual liberty” to domestic and foreign investors in the economy (Borni Reference Borni2016). Yet, the concept of individual freedom creates a high bar for a monarchy that has absolute power and restricts criticism of its sovereignty (Bertelsmann Stiftung Reference Stiftung2014, 24–25; Cavatorta and Dalmasso Reference Cavatorta, Dalmasso, Weitzman and Zisenwine2013, 121–22). Likewise, progress toward democratization has many daunting limitations. The political system lacks provision for a transparent and politically independent judiciary. So too, the regime has consolidated internal powers of imprisonment in the aftermath of terrorist bombings in Casablanca and Marrakesh. Nevertheless, Morocco's assessment as a “country in transition” by Western institutions has enabled the monarchy to command a complex network of international and local arts organizations under the umbrella term “social development” to the extent that dancers are visible evidence of Muslim youth expressing individual liberty while also being beholden to and ambivalent about sponsors with Western leanings (Borni Reference Borni2016). This pattern of politics reflects international efforts to restructure Morocco along the lines of a neoliberal state. The elimination of support for social institutions has increased the economic vulnerability of ordinary Moroccans. As far as dance sponsorship is concerned, it fits the state's policy demands of “self-reliance” in matters of career, providing examples of youth finding, however tenuously, gainful employment in the arts. When dance instructors ask novices to produce what they call “authentic” Moroccan culture, all involved are managing an uneasy alliance between national and international interests and their own positioning in a neoliberal economy. What follows provides a picture of how contemporary dance pedagogy pursues new ways for the body to move. Dance workshop instructors emphasize the cultivation of suppressed emotions and artistic expression as well as the ability to forge lives of dignity and independence.
Training the Moroccan Contemporary Dancer
The chief focus of the pedagogy in dance training workshops in Morocco is on the translation of a Euro-American genre, heavily influenced by avant-garde theater and performance art traditions, into a Moroccan form of expression. Master teachers often ask rhetorical questions, such as these taken from a promotional flyer for a workshop in 2014: “Who are you? Who do you want to be and how can the dance alchemize you into that new form? Or at least take you closer? How can you take along with you the entire path, all that your culture gave you, but do something completely new and different?” (Hafsa, unpublished flyer, February 11, 2014). These questions are deployed to influence novices to develop new movement capacities and even a new artistic identity in the workshop. To explore this dynamic further, I turn now to a dance studio in the Maarif neighborhood in Casablanca. The studio's windows are open to the salty smell of the sea, industrial exhaust, and the tantalizing odors of Moroccan cooking. The already heavy air thickens the atmosphere in the small room as bodies move with increasing energy across a wood floor. The mirrors against one wall reflect the intense concentration of the dancers' faces. Suddenly, the mood shifts to silence and stillness as the students find complete rest after a period of invigorating shaking, rolling, and jumping. They breathe hard and most study the floor, paused in the awkward and precarious postures they seized upon when the guest artist, Bilal, yelled “waqaf” (Ar., stop). Bilal then places his hand gently on the shoulder of Saïd, one of seven male students in the room, letting him know it is his turn to move into a solo. The other dancers are instructed to “witness” or watch his movements closely, as they will eventually interact with Saïd who is creating spontaneous gestures out of his perception of the sensations emanating from his own motor energy, vision, touch, and sound. Eventually the other students are instructed to create and fuse intentional movement or something they have planned to do based on Saïd's solo with their own abandoned improvisation (Borni Reference Borni2013).
Bilal has spent the morning explaining that these young artists must navigate a creative territory in between deliberate movement choices and, as he puts it, “getting out of the way for organic movement to pour forth out of their unconscious without preconceived thought” (Bilal Reference Bilal2013). The goal of the present exercise is to create an improvised movement symphony based on Saïd's initial gestures that will authentically represent the students' self-awareness as Moroccans and as dancers. To define “improvisation” broadly for most dancers, it conveys the enactment of movement without a predetermined choreography of steps or with a very loose structure or no structure at all. The idea in most improvisational exercises, especially in pedagogical contexts, is to open up individual creativity and to get dancers used to generating movement on the spot. Improvisational skills in dancers imply a freedom of expression and confidence in their bodies. Improvisation is also a constant factor in many young Moroccans' lives. In my view, elements of family life, career opportunities, and the means of finding resources within the self and in the environment lay the groundwork in many cases for the willingness and preparedness to attend workshops. However, learning improvisation as the task this evening was somewhat difficult considering the anxiety inherent in the effort of novices unschooled in this choreographic process, novices who have to come up with movements to fit criteria they have just begun to learn.
Saïd raises his right elbow and moves his arm around his head in a circle, stretches out his left leg long, staying low in a crouched position. He hovers over the floor, shifting his weight back and forth in a wide stance with his arm jutting up to the ceiling and his head hanging down. His rib cage then begins to undulate in crescent arcs from side to side. Suddenly, he interrupts the rhythm of these movements to throw his body outward and into a spin. He falls, landing lengthwise and sprawled on the floor. Extending his right leg upward, he brings it down to his side before letting it drop sharply. The momentum rolls him over onto his back and then drives him up onto his knees. He tucks his chin into his chest as if scavenging for something at his sternum. “Safi khoya merci” (Ar., that is enough, brother; Fr., thank you). Bilal cuts Saïd short, “Tu peux rester la” (Fr., you can pause there). Saïd looks up, confused, but Bilal continues, “Ajiu, nkhalkum,” (Ar., come, gather together). The seven students hover around him in a circle on the floor. “Can someone tell me what they saw in Saïd's dance?” I hear some of the students mumble timid responses. Bilal says to the group, “So why did I stop him?” No response. Bilal continues,
I think, Saïd, you started fine, but clearly your fall and recovery from the floor was a series of steps you have learned elsewhere, copied, and then repeated here from habit. They do not really come from your own creative centre. It's clearly prefabricated, you understand? I want to see you push beyond things. … You can't just fall back on what you know. … We are here to find our own expression, not copy others. (Borni Reference Borni2013)
In this first event of this workshop, the quality of a performance depends on locating real feeling beneath the layers of acquired gestures. I often heard the complaint that few Moroccan dancers embody genuine emotion in their work. Youssef, a well-known choreographer who lives in Marrakech, described emotional honesty as the most important quality of the authentic artist. “This makes Moroccan contemporary dance stand out from the Euro-American international style,” he stated (Youssef Reference Youssef2013). While dance scholar Maaike Bleeker has commented on the diminishing importance of national citizenship among Western European choreographers and dancers (Reference Bleeker, Manning and Ruprecht2012), with Moroccans, it is the reverse. Youssef's chief criticism is how many times audiences fail to distinguish the superficial aspects of technique from what he calls “authentic” Moroccan content. “The European dance companies,” he contends, “are not adequate models for Moroccan dancers because all the emphasis on technique takes attention away from the lack of dancing true feeling” (Youssef Reference Youssef2013). And to Bilal, true feeling is for country and faith. This is the opposite of the disinterested stance of European choreographers who eschew national identity in the quest for technical prowess and compositional originality. In this respect, Moroccan dancers distinguish themselves from Europe as they aspire to a place on the international stage as Moroccans.
Spiritual Traditions and the Construction of Authenticity
Over the past several years, the representation of an “authentic self” has been the focus of Moroccan dance instructors who visit from Europe as well as a rubric for authenticity used by local choreographers and those visiting Morocco from other countries in the MENA region. This perspective, they believe, will guide dancers in their quests to investigate how they can use the body to avoid the accusation of engaging in an amoral practice, as some interpreters of Islam maintain. Bilal and Yassine use the rhetoric of truth and the idea that freeing emotion from constraint reveals the soul's intentions. They look to the body for change, in effect embodying a new corporeal politics in Morocco.
Moroccan dancers wish to hone their work so that it can be interpreted as a specific form of Islamic art. However taking a closer look at this on-the-ground process, I observed that the perspective of many dancers on sculpting the body is both a personal endeavor and a cultural project. Individuality is overshadowed by the ideal of Moroccan authenticity. This is sometimes accompanied by commentary about the nation's readiness for change. For example, Bilal frequently mentions the “need” and “ripeness” of novice dancers. On the one hand, need is linked to musical and choreographic motifs associated with Moroccan spirituality. Through rhythm, the dancer leads his compatriots away from cultural pollution. On the other hand, however, contemporary dancers draw attention to the tensions between modernization, the creative arts, and customary practices of Islam. In accordance with the previous discussion of neoliberalism earlier in this article, emphasis on independent initiative and entrepreneurship foregrounds individual autonomy as a social value. But such neoliberal policies also undercut the importance of family and community as the basis of the moral economy.
Given these tensions between social factions in Morocco, master teachers demand that students coax forth movement that comes from the core of the self, self here roughly meaning the equivalent of the soul (Ar. damir, nafs, ruh). Instructors underline students' potential to reach the pure self and thereby reveal to themselves and others a sincere, one might even say an essential Moroccan identity. They argue that the dancer must locate an authentic self through an inside-out process, often referred to as “recherche” (Fr., research) on the self. Indeed, workshops and most dance education programs in Morocco are referred to as “formation” (Fr., training). This alludes to giving students the technical knowledge necessary to execute activities (in this case dance) but also, in a broader sense, to the “forming” of something that did not exist before and more specifically to “forming” someone intellectually and morally vis-à-vis a process of education.
I have also heard the word “alchemize” used to describe the inside-out transformation of the soul (Hafsa Reference Hafsa2014). Alchemy refers to the ancient idea that there is a process to turn base metal into gold. The process of alchemy was, historically, a matter of conviction, of belief, and a secret enterprise known to very few. For novice dancers, the idea of changing an entertainer into a representative of the Moroccan soul underlines the spiritual nature of contemporary dance for many participants. The analogy to alchemy rests on the capacity of master teachers to change superficial gestures into genuine emotion. Specifically, the metaphor of alchemy indexes two major religious/spiritual traditions within Moroccan Islam: Sufism and Gnawa trance.
As a path to communion with God, Sufism plays an important role in contemporary dance pedagogy. Sufi followers advocate the use of bodily practices, such as rapid twirling and other movement accompanied by intense sequences of repeated chant, drum rhythms, and/or flute melodies along with evocative singing. Likewise, Gnawa music and corporeal articulation of the hypnotic rhythms of metal castanets and drums are said to lead to a state of altered consciousness (Kapchan Reference Kapchan2007: 11–21; Kugle Reference Kugle2007: 6–7). Using these modes of “entrainment,” the dancing subject surrenders ordinary consciousness to a master, saint, or God in order to transform his present state of awareness into spiritual enlightenment. Moroccan contemporary dancers use symbols of these traditions to indicate indigenous belonging and to transform this genre into a national art form with Islamic roots. Here I ask, how does the task of translation of these mixed traditions manifest itself in local pedagogical settings? To explore this further, I return to Saïd's struggle to embody pure, authentic Moroccanness.
Everyday Life as Choreographic Inspiration
Bilal's instructions have left Saïd with sweat dripping off his forehead. Once finished, he nods to show he understands Bilal's instruction, who then says, “yella na‘ud men lbidaya ” (Ar., let's repeat from the beginning). Saïd returns to the center of the floor and lies there motionless, face down on his belly. His ankles move up, then his knees and hips, accompanied by a jerking and writhing series of movements. He flips aggressively onto his back. His chest arches upward pulling him upright into a low crouch while his right hand appears to be dragging him down against his will. It then carves the air around his body and propels him further outward into a run across the room. Then he releases tension, pauses, and steps backward. “Find your rhythm,” Bilal yells, interrupting Saïd once again, “Where is your heartbeat now?” Saïd begins to stomp his feet in syncopation and then swings his arms. “Safi Saïd baraka” (Ar., that is enough, Saïd, stop), Bilal says. Saïd looks up this time, feelings of disappointment and confusion struggling on his face. “Nta qrib Saïd, walakeen mazel … mazel mafempteksh exactement” (Ar., you are close, Saïd, but not yet there, you still don't understand exactly). “Before class tomorrow I want you to think about where your movements are coming from. Are you free? Are you just mimicking something you saw? Your artistic statement must come from the soul, and right now I see you on the edge. … You don't trust your body to show you the way.” Turning to the group seated on the floor, Bilal asks, “Do you know why you all are here?” Silence. Bilal explains,
Authenticity doesn't come immediately. The dance is not separate from the rest of life in my opinion. I don't want to see “dancing”; I want to see you, your life … but you have to break off from these limitations right now. I have to see you cross that threshold. Tomorrow I want you to bring back into the space two things: patience and real movement. But both these things you must find outside this room first. (Borni Reference Borni2013)
The class breaks for the afternoon. This is day one of five for a workshop led by Bilal entitled “Projet (Ré)Flexe.” After the session I draw near Saïd to ask him if I may accompany him as he leaves the apartment. As we descend the building's steps, I ask how he will approach the task of cultivating authentic movement from his life outside the studio. Saïd reflects back, “I can't be too deliberate, it has to come when I stop thinking, and I really feel the city and what is happening everyday to me. So no, I'm not going to look purposefully. It's going to come through sensation in my body first” (Reference Saïd2013). He appears confident that he will be successful. Saïd leaves me on the corner as he heads to the bus stop to his neighborhood.
Bilal has defined authentic body movement in a way that overrides the complexity of the sources of his own and his students' acquisition of body disciplines. His authority to do so demonstrates the long-standing tradition of master-disciple relationships and the reproduction of these power relations in Morocco today. The relationship between Bilal and Saïd is at once personal, but also archetypal. Abdellah Hammoudi, a historian of Moroccan Sufi dynamics, provides an analysis of the way in which social and political authority reproduces itself in many forms. He writes, “Authority [based on Islamic traditions] is constantly coming into existence and dynamizing statements and actions … [through] sacrificing, masquerading, eating, dancing … or by commenting on these events” (1997, xvi). As Moroccan economic and political contexts change, the domains of action for the master-disciple relationship have shifted dramatically. Authority has drifted toward global commerce, “masters” of technology, the arts, and media, with the consequent diminishment of the power of traditional religious authority (Eickelman Reference Eickelman1976; Spadola Reference Spadola2014). In this sense, faith has drifted toward new venues such as contemporary dance training programs.
The authority of guest choreographer Bilal, a Moroccan based in Toulouse in France, is a case in point. Speaking to Bilal the morning before the workshop commenced, he confided that his pedagogical approach focuses on rhythmic energy fuelled by African motifs. He uses these motifs to structure his own performance work. Bilal also prides himself on the rejection of the language of academic techniques (or the use of systematic movement vocabularies) such as ballet. He also acknowledges the power of learned sensibilities and techniques of the body drawn from sources outside of Morocco:
We grow up with both: we are in the midst of the modern and the indigenous all the time. This, right here, is all we need to work with. I don't think we need to look to Europe particularly. Certainly we should not copy all that has been done before …. It will just get us in the same place: dependent, imitative, stuck. (Bilal Reference Bilal2013)
Throughout the workshop, Bilal calls attention to the way dancers unquestioningly reproduce movement they have seen on the Internet. In contrast, he describes the “genuine” as indexing a cultural essence evocative of Arab/African spirituality. In one conversation I had with him, Bilal outlined his goals for workshop participants who had limited previous experience with contemporary dance:
I'm here to give them tools to discover themselves as artists. That is obvious. But that is a long process. … Not everyone will choose to pursue dance professionally. Inevitably they have to start with cultivating an open mind, something that isn't presented to them in this society. They need to learn to question and break free of the limitations set for them by their families and peers. (Bilal Reference Bilal2013)
I stopped Bilal there and asked him to define “breaking free.” He responded that it means one should use the body as the main instrument of self-discovery.
It's not a rejection of where they come from. … They can make the choices to represent Morocco as something intrinsic to their identity because it comes from how their body has learned over time and how they can approach body history as an investigation, a discovery. In the studio I just set up ways to approach this, but it's really important they carry on as artists in their everyday life—in the street, the house, at school. Morocco needs this intervention at this time. It's ripe. The young people are ready. (Bilal Reference Bilal2013)
During Projet (Ré)Flexe, Bilal's instructions indexed several diverse bodily disciplines, such as Japanese martial arts, Brazilian self-defence regimens, and the ubiquitous genre of belly dance. Classes featuring these skills are widely available in urban Morocco. While Bilal repeatedly stated that this is not “a rejection of where they come from,” I asked how he thinks about the fact that the tools for the construction of an authentic, Moroccan identity come by way of Euro-American and other global pedagogical techniques, that is, fusion (contact improvisation, release vocabulary, performance art exercises, and martial arts). Bilal remarked that many body-training systems are useful when one is looking for the center or core of the soul, but they must be abandoned when one is creating original performance material. In this brief commentary Bilal not only recapitulates a tenet of neoliberalism, which is the necessity of remaking the self, but also quite openly explains the manufactured nature of authenticity and originality that Adorno captured in his phrase, “the jargon of authenticity” ([1964] Reference Adorno, Tarnowksi and Will1986).
Bilal has taught and performed worldwide. Leaning toward “performance art,” he frequently includes installations of sets, lights, sound effects, and props, with an emphasis on the interaction of these elements rather than on technical movement prowess. His pedagogy, including improvisational exercises, overlaps with modern dance and postmodern techniques common to the international world of performance arts. His commentary, whether in workshops or in interviews, is not only richly joined to globally circulating ideals of creativity, originality, and individuality, but it also reflects Morocco's historical connection to European culture in the back and forth movements of artists between continents. While Bilal omits reference to his experience with Euro-American dance when teaching, the major portion of his qualifications for funding in Morocco and abroad depend on this background. But from his own point of view, his aim in teaching is to use the dancing body as the site of erasure and reinscription. Contemporary dance, he asserted, will remake Moroccan youth from the inside out. For example, he explained the Gnawan music and imagery he uses are actually signatures of pure origin.
In the next workshop session, Bilal reiterated his demand that the student dancers transform artificial constructs of the self and go beyond the barrier of customary comportment in their daily lives. He starts the recording of a well-known group of Gnawa musicians. The sights and sounds of Gnawa entertainers, believed to be descendants of sub-Saharan slaves, are also commonly employed in family celebrations, such as weddings in Casablanca and Marrakech. Yet, Bilal's stress on shaping a body that represents the African/Arab lineage draws boundaries around this ethnicity. What is ever more daunting is that Gnawans, and Berbers as well, are generally ranked, regarding social class, language, and race as inferior to Arabs and lacking the qualities of a model Moroccan citizen—or worse, they are considered to present a threat to the unity of nation and the sovereignty of the monarchy (Hoffman Reference Hoffman2008, 17; Kapchan Reference Kapchan1996, Reference Kapchan2007). Thus, contradictions arise from the interpretations of “otherness.” While the authority of master teachers tends to blur ethnic distinctions important to many Moroccans socially and politically, their ideal of authenticity derives from these symbols of spirituality, for example, in prominent choreographers' works that use Berber music, theatrical themes, and costuming. Nonetheless, this paradox of identity dramatized by the dancers (e.g., who is included in the nation and who is excluded) goes to the heart of conflictual Moroccan politics. Thus, the workshop discourse around authenticity contains a recognition of the perennial struggle between modernizing the society through acceptance of dancing in public and relying on its “roots” for social order and spiritual guidance.
The self-conscious Moroccan community of contemporary dancers—although small and not intentionally political in the sense of being an activist movement—also challenges the image of Moroccan society as religious by its display of the body in public performance. Yet, while private European sponsors of dance see the urban centers as secular spaces, it is a view that produces social anxiety for most Moroccans and for dancers as well, who define aspects of their Muslim identity in terms of a sense of belonging to place, family, and community. Dancers bear and embody these contradictions as an unresolvable view of identity: it is neither this nor that. Recognizing the instability of absolutes, contemporary dancers steer between their need for economic self-sufficiency, possible social paralysis, or worse, the violent confrontation between political factions that could threaten to tear Morocco apart.
Summary and Conclusion
As I argued at the outset of this article, the exposure of the dancing body reflects some of the important social and political dilemmas facing Moroccans today. Dancers in particular are seeking professional recognition and economic mobility while coping with the quandaries of their art on the moral margins of a society in which many consider dancing in public forbidden by their religion. Focusing on dance workshop discourse and movement, I have shown that Moroccan dancers are constantly renegotiating these terms of adherence to cultural identity. They are also contributing to the fluidity of their communities, thus contradicting the many stereotypes of Middle Eastern and North African youth as nonagentive participants in society.
The emphasis on “authenticity” in novice training provides a perspective on the historical tensions between globalization, nationalism, and ethnic, religious, and gendered identity in Morocco. Given the urgency of heightened social and political upheavals in the wider MENA region, the contemporary dance workshops discussed here represent some of the present-day dilemmas experienced by a sector of Arab Muslim youth. In no way does the world of the contemporary dancer present a microcosmic view of the nation. Rather, their quandary reflects the difficulty of constituting a singular notion of authenticity for Moroccans as a whole. Here the struggle among the younger generation of the population to resolve tensions related to consistent, authentic, standards of comportment finds dramatic embodiment in the dance studio.
As I have argued, contemporary dancers produce a fractured vision of Moroccan-ness and a cleft between self and “other” (the inauthentic). As Jessica Winegar points out, artistic debates over authenticity are common to countries “on the margins of western European and American international art scenes” (Reference Winegar2006, 92). Workshops for novices provide a view of the process through which dancers construct new identities based on a pedagogical narrative of training “authentic” Moroccan artists through use of indigenous Gnawa musical idioms, Berber culture, and ecstatic Sufi dance practices. In these settings, indigeneity is the most salient value.
Consequently, Moroccan contemporary dance workshops carry a broad significance even while including only a small sample of artists: they are prime sites for watching the as-yet-unresolved cultural politics of Morocco play out through the art of dance. They allow us to witness a new formation of artistic expression that resists the portrayal of Muslims and Moroccans as a monolithic population. In addition, through the lens of the workshops, we witness attempts to construct a bridge between customary values and changing standards of comportment. In this sense, dancers embody a negotiation between closely held regulations of conduct in the public domain, notions of worthy citizenship, and the demands of the global political economy on everyday Moroccans and especially on youth seeking economic independence.
Novice dancers in Morocco are most typically from the mass of unemployed youth who are seeking social mobility as well as a virtuous way to live in accordance with their Muslim beliefs. The appeal of contemporary dance to neophytes lies in its ability to provide dancers with a platform to pursue an artistic career and to simultaneously articulate a Muslim and Moroccan identity. Susan Manning, historian of dance, has mapped an outlook on early twentieth-century modern dance that is useful to understanding the representational frame of the nation Moroccan contemporary dancers attempt to articulate. As Manning writes, choreographic representations of nationhood are imaginary connections between the dancer and the “collective body of the nation” (Reference Manning1993, 1). The struggle for the soul of Moroccan dance students provides a glimpse into the political struggles within Morocco for a vision of its future as a pivotal Mediterranean country during a time of upheaval. So, too, the process of training contemporary dancers to choreograph the authentic Moroccan comes at a time when rifts over who is to be included as “other” raise the stakes for the nation on the edge of a larger geopolitical contest over populations and resources.
The tasks left to Moroccan dancers represent no easy feat to accomplish: to reject convention on contemporary performance art platforms while simultaneously reinvoking the traditional past. This is where the discourses and practices in the studio are at the crux of social change embodied by the dancer. While the master instructor or choreographer reframes the movements sourced in traditions and other genres of dance as “fusion,” these movements are also categorized as nonimitative or as not previously conceived, but rather spontaneously generated—in a word, improvised. The dance is claimed to be “essential” to the individual artist: emitted and alchemized from the dancer's internal and spiritually pure being—that is, the soul. But engagement with dance was more than personal for my interlocutors: it was a way for dancers to envision an independent future and with it, the revised standards of comportment that would include newly choreographed technologies of the body in dance form. Watching both audience indifference and, at times, hostile local reactions to performances, I have seen dancers in a precarious position as they construct a bridge between the cultural politics of the regime, their economic status, family loyalties, and religious identity. At present, their work is part of an ambiguous picture, one that fits the unpredictability of the region: it signals the ideals of nationhood and culture that contemporary dancers embody despite an unknown and possibly tenuous future.
