Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:54:46.623Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2017

Karima Borni
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Keywords

contemporary dancedance trainingIslamMoroccopedagogyyouth
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , December 2017 , pp. 53 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2005. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor. (1964) 1986. The Jargon of Authenticity. Translated by Tarnowksi, Knut and Will, Frederic. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Becker, Cynthia. 2006. Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Stiftung, Bertelsmann. 2014. “Country Report: Morocco.” http://www.bti-project.org/reports/country-reports/mena/mar/index.nc. Accessed March 15, 2015.Google Scholar
Bilal, . 2013. Fieldwork interviews with Karima Borni. Casablanca, January 21–25.Google Scholar
Bleeker, Maike. 2012. “Lecture and Performance as Contemporary Dance.” In New German Dance Studies, edited by Manning, Susan and Ruprecht, Lucia, 232–46. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Borni, Karima. 2013. Fieldnotes (unpublished). Casablanca and Marrakech, Morocco. January and October.Google Scholar
Borni, Karima. 2016. “Embodied Authenticity in Moroccan Contemporary Dance.” PhD diss. Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cavatorta, Francesco, and Dalmasso, Emanuela. 2013. “The Converging Power of Civil Society? The Human Rights Doctrine.” In Contemporary Morocco: State Politics and Society Under Mohammed VI, edited by Weitzman, Bruce Maddy and Zisenwine, Daniel, 120–35. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cohen, Shana. 2004. Searching for a Different Future: The Rise of a Global Middle Class in Morocco. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Shana, and Jaidi, Larbi. 2006. Morocco: Globalization and Its Consequences. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cole, Jennifer, and Durham, Deborah. 2008. “Introduction.” In Figuring the Future: Globalization and the Temporalities of Children and Youth, edited by Cole, Jennifer and Durham, Deborah, 1–13. Santa Fe, NM: School of Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Combs-Schilling, E. M. 1989. Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Eickelman, Dale. 1976. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Centre. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984. “What Is an Author?” In Foucault Reader, edited by Rabinow, Paul, 101–20. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1968. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ghafar, Abdel, and Jacobs, Anna. 2017. “Could Morocco's Political Shakeup Empower More Radical Elements?” http://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/04/17. Accessed June 29, 2017.Google Scholar
Goodman, Jane E. 2005. Berber Culture on the World Stage: From Village to Video. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Guellouz, Mariem. 2013. “De la danse contemporaine au Maghreb à une danse contemporaine maghrébine.” Marges: Revue d'art contemporain 16: 60–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafsa, . 2014. Workshop flyer. Unpublished. Marrakech, February 11.Google Scholar
Hammoudi, Abdellah. 1997. Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1983. “Introduction: The Invention of Traditions.” In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Hobsbawm, Eric and Granger, Terence, 1–14. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Katherine E. 2008. We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Howe, Marvine. 2005. Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1790) 1914. Critique of Pure Judgement. Translated by Bernard, J. H.. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kapchan, Deborah. 1996. Gender on the Market: Moroccan Women and the Revoicing of Tradition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Kapchan, Deborah. 2007. Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Kugle, Scott A. 2007. Sufis and Saints' Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and the Sacred Power of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Manning, Susan. 2004. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mohamed, . 2013. Fieldwork interview with Karima Borni. Casablanca, November 12.Google Scholar
Myers, Fred. 1995. “Representing Culture: The Production of Discourse(s) for Aboriginal Acrylic Painting.” In The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, edited by Marcus, G. E. and Myers, F. R., 55–95. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nabil, . 2013. Fieldwork interview with Karima Borni. Casablanca, May 28.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally A. 1992. Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nieuwkerk, Karin. 1995. A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Pieprzak, Katarzyna. 2010. Imagined Museums: Art and Modernity in Postcolonial Morocco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Potuoglu-Cook, Oyku. 2006. “Beyond the Glitter: Belly Dance and Neoliberal Gentrification in Istanbul.” Cultural Anthropology 21 (5): 633–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachid, . 2014. Fieldwork interview with Karima Borni. Marrakech, February 24.Google Scholar
Reed, Susan. 1998. “The Politics and Poetics of Dance.” Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 503–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Susan. 2010. Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Lawrence. 1984. Bargaining for Reality: The Construction of Social Relations in a Muslim Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Lawrence. 2002. The Culture of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Saïd, . 2013. Fieldwork interviews with Karima Borni. Casablanca, January 21–25.Google Scholar
Sater, Joseph. 2011. Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spadola, Emilio. 2014. The Calls of Islam: Sufis, Islamists, and Mass Mediation in Urban Morocco. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Winegar, Jessica. 2006. Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yassine, . 2013. Fieldwork interviews by Karima Borni. Casablanca, October 14–19.Google Scholar
Youssef, . 2013. Fieldwork interview with Karima Borni. Marrakech, June 16.Google Scholar