Video Artists in Conversation - Edition Morocco: rebalancing fe/male energy

Together with Dutch theatre company Female Economy (FE) DutchCulture organised the Morocco edition of Artist in Conversation. Our country advisor Myriam Sahraoui - who is also co-founder of FE - hosts a very lively, personal and intimate discussion between FE makers Adelheid Roosen and Ola Mafaalani with Ghassan el Hakim of the Moroccan musical theatre company Kabareh Cheikhats.

Kabareh Cheikhats is a male theatre group bringing a tribute to the Moroccan musical tradition of the cheikhats; proud female performers. Ghassan el Hakim: “The reason I wanted to transform ourselves as men into the female cheikhats is that I think we need to find this balance in ourselves between the male and the female, we have to be plural. We have an entire universe of identities inside ourselves. We cannot just behave like one, or on a binary spectrum. I think we all are a lot of things. The first time we performed, I was very scared, afraid people would throw stones at us. But I had to do it. The cheikhats for me are the voice against injustice, whether performed by a man or by a woman."

About the artistic exchange with Female Economy: I felt at home when I came to the Netherlands to work with Female Economy, like we are family. We work likewise in a non-hierarchical manner; the way in which we include the public, and how we connect between us. We work from the moment itself, spontaneously.”