Searching for the Soul: A Training Program for Moroccan Contemporary Dancers

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 1992, 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 2014.¹ It explores how novice contemporary dancers learn to embody notions of Moroccan "authenticity," both individual and collective.² As prelude to the meaning of Moroccan authenticity developed further on, I foreground Eric Hobsbawm's critique...