Gnawa Dance mit Asmaa Hamzaoui

In the organizer's words:

The second workshop of the festival is dedicated to the body. Asmaa Hamzaoui, the first female maâlma of the Gnawa, introduces participants to the movement language that carries the musical language in Lila - and without which the Gnawa cannot be fully understood. The workshop is aimed at dancers of all backgrounds: contemporary dancers in search of a different rhythmic body feeling; flamenco, afro, contemporary and folk dancers who want to bring the Gnawa movements into dialog with their own vocabulary; amateurs who simply want to experience how body, pulse and breath come together in this tradition. Hamzaoui works in three steps: the anchoring in the pulse of the qraqeb, the two-part iron castanets, and in the 6/8 feeling of the Gnawa, from which all movement comes; the basic steps and figures that form the rhythmic vocabulary of the dance; and the dynamic increase towards the Jedba, the trance-like movement that forms the heart of Lila - which can be experienced here in a protected workshop setting, not as a re-enactment of the ritual, but as an approach to its physical logic.

No previous knowledge necessary. Comfortable clothing and flat shoes or bare feet recommended. Asmaa Hamzaoui, born in Casablanca in 1998, is the first woman in the history of the Gnawa to bear the title of Maâlma; she will perform at the festival herself the evening before with her group Bnat Timbouktou. Those who attend the workshop will bring a different ear - and a different body - to the concert in the evening.

Part of Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Global Echoes of Gnawa.