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

Abstract

In a society in which display of the body and dancing in public is controversial, the growth of contemporary dance festivals and training workshops demonstrates the changing face of Morocco's moral and political economies. This article explores the training of young dancers who are striving to embody a new Muslim corporeality and at the same time achieve professional artistic recognition in Moroccan society. Using ethnographic methods, the article focuses on the attraction of novices to contemporary dance activities, as seen through the “cultivation of the soul” in improvisational and choreographic practices related to local spiritual traditions, providing them with a niche in the global arts market and an “authentic” identity as Moroccans.

Introduction

“…Yet, this centrality is dimly matched with a systematic and critical exercise in theorizing the dancing body beyond the analysis of Orientalist discourses of desire, knowledge and power, (Said 1978) which this body eludes as it dances (Karayanni 2008). Recent ethnographical accounts of the dancing body in mena also explore how the contemporary dance movement reflects the irresolution of Maghrebi contemporaneity (Guellouz 2013) and cultural identity (Borni 2017). Nevertheless, ethnographical analysis still interprets bodily movement merely through what it represents; the Maghreb, much like Said interpreting Kuchuk's body, as the Orient.…”