Algerian born first source master dance artist and healer Amel Tafsout and Harlem, NYC based teaching artist Esraa Warda will discuss the power of Maghreb dances as transmitters of healing, power, identity and tradition. Examining oral and kinesthetic practices, both Amel and Esraa will share their approach to learning and teaching traditional North African dance and the importance of preservation, performance and resistance to imperialism, colonialism and erasure. Tiffany Hanan Madera, Director of Hanan Arts, will moderate the discussion connecting the topics of intersecting identities, race, cultural violence and gender with the guest artists.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Born in Algeria, Amel Tafsout (meaning ‘Hopes of Spring’ ) is a charismatic first source international acclaimed Dance artist of North African traditional and contemporary Maghreb Dance. Raised in Algeria among the finest traditional dancers and musicians, Amel was fascinated by dance and music since childhood. Tafsout is also a socio-linguist, a language instructor, a frame drummer, a singer, a poet and an energy worker.
With a research in Dance anthropology and a long training in various healing practices, her knowledge of her culture and her experience in many dance styles make her very unique. She has mesmerized audiences worldwide.
Amel has dedicated her life not only to raising awareness about her dance culture but also to facilitating dialogue and building cultural bridges with regard to Arab-North African women. She is the founder of Banat As Sahra (Germany) and The Tafsoutettes (England) and has performed with a wide range of music orchestras from Latin Jazz to North African.
Amel’s articles relating to dance, cultural traditions and women of the Maghreb have been published in academic and popular magazines. Inanna Iraqi Dance Festival in June 2018 in Estonia gave Amel an Award of acknowledgment and appreciation for her longstanding contributions in Arabic dance and its heritage.
Esraa Warda is a New York-based performance and teaching artist that preserves and transmits traditional Moroccan and Algerian dance forms through movement workshops and interactive performances. Young talent of Algerian origin, Warda is a community-taught dancer under the mentorship of women elders in her family and artists from Morocco and Algeria. She is a firm advocate in the power of intergenerational transmission, women-led traditions, and decolonizing euro-centricity, Orientalism, and oppressed bodies in dance.
Warda, meaning "rose" in Arabic, is a rebellious spirit who challenges patriarchy and misogyny towards women dancers in her community and also neo-colonialist impositions on North African culture. She is a cultural warrior driving North African dance styles out of the margins and into the global dance and culture scene. Warda has been featured in Vogue Arabia, Al Jazeera Plus, NBC Asian America, Wada7, and Hespress and teaches all over the world with her home base in Harlem. New York.
About the Moderator:
Tiffany Hanan Madera is an artist at the intersection of film, dance, contemporary art and social justice. Anchored in Caribbean aesthetics, Madera’s work is provocative and global, bridging movement and visual vocabularies from North Africa, the Caribbean and Americas to examine diasporic thought and bodies. Working with feminist and post colonial theories, her projects seek to reconcile gender and diasporic trauma. Through her films and projects, Madera creates transformative opportunities for healing and building community.
Based in Miami Beach, Madera directs Hanan Arts, an intersectional feminist arts non profit and produces festivals, social practice interdisciplinary projects, curates contemporary art exhibitions, performs and choreographs dance and directs and produces documentary films. As an educator, Madera serves as Adjunct faculty at Barry University. In collaboration with various non profits, Madera has taught dance and performance extensively in a women’s correctional facility, with adjudicated, homeless, marginalized and immigrant youth, adult survivors of child sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault, all using bellydance as her unique calling card.
Her award winning films and projects have been funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ware Foundation, state and local government and others. Tiffany Hanan Madera holds a Masters Degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Florida International University and a Master’s Degree in Performance Studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Presented as part of Shift. Shimmy. Pivot. - an initiative of Hanan Arts, in partnership with Havana Habibi Festival.