Dancing with the Madames
Bouchra Ouizguen is crossing the line.
September 26, 2010
Moroccan choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen met Aïta singers performing in the Madame Plaza club in Marrakech. In Madame Plaza she dances together with her subjects, to the popular Moroccan song form. Madame Plaza is a kind of safe meeting ground. They performed it at Florence Gould Hall on September 22 and 23 as part of the French Institute’s Crossing the Line Festival and Trajal Harrell’s Danspace Platform “certain difficulties, certain joy.”
Ouizguen uses movement and sound (songs with lyrics unintelligible to most in the audience) to present a drama set in the club. (A brothel?) The movement comes from their traditional, popular dances, inspired by oriental and geisha dances. The performers appear as sculpted forms in pedestrian loungewear, recalling ancient Venus figures in incarnations both high and low.
The four women sit with knees slightly spread, staring out at us. They list and loll a bit, on covered foam daybeds. Ouizguen, in a loose fitting top, blends into the group of fulsome singers who are built for belting out sound. Then, her captivating movement reveals her training in oriental and European dance.
At first, Madame Plaza faces a polite audience of voyeurs. And nagging issues of women’s pain and powerlessness in the sex trade persist throughout the seemingly simple and lighthearted dance.
Naïma Sahmoud doubles with the choreographer in sisterly playful moves. They are dressed alike in patterned tops that complement the upholstery. The other two wear big, brightly colored T’s. When Fatima El Hanna opens her mouth, her strong, chanting tone compels. She even sings while rolling on the floor with the others, in a fluid mass. According to a program note, the songs invoke Allah, souls, love, or fierce horsemen.
Recorded vocal and stringed instruments intermittently accompany the live song and movement blend. A performer might grunt, wail, smile or grimace. These are clues and help us suspend disbelief. They jump on the beds. (Three are a moveable set, standing on end, or arranged in different ways.) The women run vigorously together on the diagonal. From opposite corners, they sing to each other across the stage. Mood, speed, and emotions vary in Madame Plaza, suggesting a day in The Life.
In a repeating motif, a dancer facing upstage shakes her outspread hands while raising curvilinear arms in a kind of benediction. Her expressive arms sometimes flap like wings, suggesting flight and spirituality.
Madame Plaza
front: Naïma Sahmoud
© Hibou Photography
We get familiar with the heavy characters in this floating world. Ouizguen invites us to meet them on their ground. Magically, we are taken in. Their tome of love, futility, sisterhood, corporeality, and spirituality does transcend the language barrier, in movement that ranges from lounging and listing to simulated sex.
We warm to Madame Plaza especially when Kabboura Aït Ben Hmad pulls on a man’s white suit over her pajamas and courts Hanna. Her gestures and expressions hold subtle, tongue-in-cheek wit. The scene is slightly kinky and surely universal. Meanwhile, Ouizguen and Sahmoud peep over a fence of the upholstered foam, coyly watching the mating couple. Their cavorting is itself endearing, supporting drama.
By the end of the performance, we feel closer. Like at the start. the four sit and stare at us again, but the couches are now downstage. The dancers take their bows in Thalie Lurault’s steady, warm lighting. It ends on a hopeful note.
Ouizguen is working on a documentary, in which we will hopefully learn more about the Aïta performers informing this work.