1. You've really spread awareness about Amazigh and traditional dances. Tell us
more about the work that you do to dismantle the impact of colonization and
appropriation.
I come from an Amazigh tribe in Eastern Morocco, near the Moroccan-Algerian border. My family resisted French colonization. My father had to emigrate to France around the age of 18, without money, in the 1960s to escape poverty and support his family, like many North
Africans. That’s why I was born in Paris but also, I am very sensitive to the colonization topic, as some members of my family have been tortured and killed during French colonization. For over 15 years, I've promoted North African traditional dances in Europe while being active in the hip-hop and clubbing scenes, particularly Waacking and Voguing for more than 20 years.
About colonization / appropriation in dance I've faced two main issues: being mislabeled as
a belly dancer and encountering dancers replicating colonial artifacts especially from "Tribal
Fusion"; dancers trained from USA formats and bellydancers from East Europe who have
plagiarized videos of my dance groups; choreographies from YouTube without asking us or
giving credit for choreography competitions, workshops, and performances.
The most publicized case was when Lebanese star Myriam Fares - who is not Amazigh-
plagiarized our choreographies movement by movement for a video clip that was supposed
to pay tribute to Amazigh culture but was filled with inaccuracies because no Amazigh were
involved. We had to hire a lawyer. She never answered us, asked us, paid us, mentioned us,
while touring with our choreographies.
To come back to dancers using the words "tribe"; or "tribal"; as a brand to reproduce colonial orientalism is insulting. Some dancers told me I hear you, but I cannot remove this word
because it is my festival name or my website name. I will lose some clients…
What I can answer this when I go back to my Amazigh lands confronted to the real life. Our
Amazigh tribes struggle to survive under precarious conditions, mostly in mountains to
protect themselves from invaders, with traditions fading as people migrate.
A tribe represents a social, political, and cultural organization, not a brand. Some people can
answer that tribal means today more “community” but they are in denial: "Tribal Fusion"; in
the USA was inspired by colonial archives since the 60s, without involving people of culture,
perpetuated through marketing, business and branding.
My work involves raising awareness about the harms of colonization and orientalism, which
exoticized and eroticized our grandmothers. Amazigh culture is oral, so the only available
written archives are all colonial. We had to wait for contemporary researchers to have a
neutral view on our own history.
As an artist and activist, I create projects around Amazigh heritage. Colonization has been
followed by pan-Arabism in our countries during post-independence, marginalizing Amazigh
identities. Recent years have seen some governmental recognition of Amazigh cultures also
thanks to activists and tribe resistances.
Speaking up has generated both support and backlash, including from "tribal" / bellydancers, racists, and North-African pan-Arabists who deny Amazigh identity. For example, we have been directly threatened with Kif-Kif Bledi by one of the top far-right politicians, on a TV show because we are a MENA dance group. This is something that does not happen that often to non-native MENA dancers and very few of them supported us in France after this shock. We mainly received support from the Hiphop dancers community because we face the same cultural discriminations both linked to our practises and our origins.
I've had numerous exchanges with “tribal fusion” teachers / "big names"; and was struck by
their ignorance and denial about colonial and orientalist issues. Also, some of them asked me for advice in private, what name should I put to replace this step etc and then not mentioning me and not appreciating that I continue to speak up.
Worse has been when one very known teacher used our private conversations (I naively
gave very precious information) to build paid classes at a very expensive price several
weeks after without involving or asking me.
Here are examples in the middle of a lot that I call double cultural appropriation: appropriating our heritage and now our nowadays reappropriation work. Some teachers want to show they also sell ethics but do not appreciate being corrected by
native people and ignore them. Or they want the “friendly” native people who will not speak
up.
Our work demands unwavering commitment and immense energy, especially as a mother. I
want my child to be proud of her Amazigh heritage. I focus on reclaiming what we have lost
and criticize what is parodied and orientalized in an honest way because we have no other
choice after being silenced.
Two significant achievements in 2023 were being a TEDx speaker in Paris about my work
for women to reconnect to their Amazigh heritage and my project TIMAZIGHIN, which
reconnects Amazigh women with their cultural heritage through old jewelry which I recovered with great difficulty, often acquired for a very low price by French during colonization, and which today are worth a fortune and are no longer accessible to Amazigh people. This is why it is no longer acceptable to see brands or dancers on stage reproducing a colonial fantasy about our grandmothers, with tattoos, jewelry, fake stage names, steps and more that we, as Amazigh heirs, no longer have the privilege to recover or document.
2. Tell us all about Kif Kif Bledi! How it got started, what the group focuses on, and
what you have coming up.
I founded the dance company Kif-Kif Bledi in 2017. Before that, I had other group projects
"casting”, but I felt the lack of cultural depth of dancers. For Kif-Kif Bledi instead of holding
auditions or taking on students, I invited people from my network, and others contacted me
spontaneously. I call this "Mektoubism” because I worked with amazing dancers who came
to me naturally and who are still really involved in the project because we have same vision
and goals.
Gradually, the group came together with members from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon,
and Senegal, born in France like me or who left their country of origin. We have enriched
each other with our dances, music, cultures, clothing, languages, food, families, rituals and
more. It truly is an internal exchange, and we communicate on a daily basis on a lot of
topics. Kif-Kif Bledi has become almost a lifestyle for us.
From the beginning, my goal was clear: to bring a MENA traditional dances company to
professional stages in France, such as theaters, conservatories, and educational institutions
with a strong focus on Amazigh dances.
We are still sometimes wrongly associated with amateur performances and advertisements.
I refused to fit into this category and used my training in modern jazz at the conservatory,
which I obtained through a scholarship, and my experience during a training as
choreographer at the National Dance Center France to support our goals and use
academical codes to join this scene first and then make our own codes been accepted.
For the past seven years, we have consistently been rejected for funding as professional
artists in France, so we have implemented self-production methods to achieve our
objectives. This means working and investing money twice as much as a typical artist in
France. We had to keep our parallel jobs to support our dancing.
Thanks to network and social media, we gained recognition and received regular invitations
without applying to perform on major stages, theaters, and universities in France and
internationally. We also collaborate with our countries of origin, especially Morocco, where
we performed several times.
We offer dance performances, workshops, regular classes, and cultural conferences and
contents. Our unique approach preserves the essence and spontaneous organicity of
traditional dances through a choreographic lens.
We are privileged to be in majority binational, allowing us to travel with a French passport,
speaking English, and being familiar with digital tools—advantages not all our colleagues in
our home countries have. Also, professional dancer/teacher is not considered as a real job in
lot of countries of origin especially for women native dancers who are then considered as a
bad reputation person. Even people like us from diaspora. I work also to change this mindset
and be considered as respected artists.
Several dancers of Kif-Kif Bledi came also like me from other dance communities like
hiphop, Waacking, Voguing, Bollywood, being really immersed in battles, balls, events,
clubs, traveling a lot for the social experiences for years just for the passion of those dances.
That’s why Kif-Kif Bledi also focuses on our own fusion signature which is an authentic
balance between different social dances cultures we have been involved in for many years.
We are not picking up some steps from here to here without knowing the origins, culture or
community.
This is the reason why in Paris our group is also known and supported by many dancers
from hiphop and clubbing communities.
Since 2022, we have opened our own cultural center in the heart of Paris, the Kif-Kif Bledi
Studio, which I manage. It is not a dance school but a cultural center because we believe
that the transmission of dance is inseparable from all other cultural aspects.
3. Why is it important to distinguish between traditional dance and folkloric? What
advice would you give to students looking for information on this?
Our dances aren't basically for entertainment or stage performance. They're often collective,
tribal, familial, but above all, social dances. People dance for specific reasons, often related to nature, social life, harvests, or wars. My own tribe in Morocco refuses to dance for a non social event for money. They are really authentic. I mainly learned through weddings, village fests, at home with grandmothers and aunts, and never having the audacity to ask for a private class. This is weird for us and not natural transmission.
I also work on decolonizing semantics: words in English and French can distort and denature our dances essence. For instance, in France, the term "folklore"; carries negative connotations, associated with colonization and hotel dances for entertaining Western tourists. In contrast, in English, "folk"; means the people. So, personally, I avoid using the term "folklore"; in both languages and prefer "traditional"; "social"; or "popular"; dances.
Similarly, words like "indigene"; in French are very racist and colonial and are no longer used.
Or "belly dance"; coined by French colonizers as “la danse du ventre” = dance of the belly,
not just to refer to "raks sharki"; but broadly to dances of colonized women in North Africa.
My advice to students is sadly not to blindly trust everything taught in standardized formats
by very famous teachers paying them a lot of money.
These formats, without questioning themselves over the years, created a power dynamic
and "star system"; that leaves little room for critical thinking. Those who dared to ask
questions or correct a teacher (because of their origin) were often humiliated.
If you're truly passionate, immerse yourself in the culture with communities and countries of
origin. As heirs ourselves, we acknowledge that we don't know everything. Some may brand
themselves as a “40 years of career experienced dancer and teacher” but still perpetuate
orientalist fantasies that look so obvious to us. Some people should remember that they are
guests in a culture, and better be an ally.
Capitalism in dance has invisibilized certain profiles of people of origin who don't fit into the
"star system"; categories. These are the people we should consult as experts now, as fame
has nothing to do with legitimacy.
We should be more in line with what happens to western societies about diversity and
inclusion.
4. What are a few points students/dancers should keep in mind about Amazigh dance
in reference to facial markings, costuming and other influences that have spread
maybe erroneously?
First of all, it is crucial to understand that the Amazighs (Imazighen in plural) are the
indigenous people of North Africa. This encompasses around ten countries that have been
colonized or attacked by various entities, including the Phoenicians, Vandals, Romans,
Byzantines, Ottomans, Arabs, and Europeans (especially France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy).
Despite enduring numerous invasions, our culture has remarkably survived for centuries only
through oral transmission.
Many other oppressed or colonized peoples haven't been as fortunate in surviving and
achieving recognition today, notably the Native Americans, which is also why we are deeply
concerned about the situation in Palestine.
When we, a dance group with predominantly Amazigh roots, engage in this, it's for social goals, empowerment, pride, and reclaiming our heritage. Unfortunately, whenever I've seen
non-Amazigh individuals staging Amazigh dances, it often excludes this essence, attempting
to incorporate external visual elements like tattoos, reproducing costumes without involving
people of Amazigh origin, using inappropriate music, names, and more.
When we politely comment on social media to explain what's wrong, we get deleted and often blocked.
So the question is why do people want to reproduce this on stage? What is the goal? What
is the purpose?
Some dancers seem obsessed with taking classes, quickly moving to the stage, entering
competitions, and teaching. This is not our mindset. For us, it naturally evolved as part of our
cultural transmission, and on stage, we prioritize close social interaction with the audience,
not just staging.
To those who use Amazigh dances without deeply immersing themselves or involving
Amazigh people, a process that takes decades and decades, they can strongly perpetuate a
colonial, pejorative and orientalist view of our culture. Especially if they are not aware of
historical cultural struggles but also nowaday’s regular evolution of our culture recognition
which is definitively political.
5. Lastly, what would you like to see happen in the future?
I would like the pluralities of North African identities to be recognized more deeply. For
example, in France, almost the entire society sociologically refers to North Africans as
Arabs, whereas we are predominantly Amazigh. There is also a huge amount of work to
decolonize our own communities.
I hope that interests in our cultures are sincere, not only focusing on what is aesthetically
pleasing but also on our struggles and issues that can lead to the erasure of our existence.
Specifically, the silence of some Raks Sharki and fusion dancers on issues concerning the
natural disasters killing and impacting multiple people in North-Africa including Moroccan
and Algerian Amazigh people, Libyans, the genocide in Palestine, Egyptian women struggles or when we denounce systemic discrimination and racism that we face, is quite deafening and unsettling, reflecting a real problem of hypocrisy in the dance system.
It only reinforces cultural appropriation on the cultures some people made monetized
careers on.
We must absolutely contribute to decolonizing the vision of our cultures and fight against
orientalism. It's 2024, and all the tools are available to address these issues. But it requires
the willingness to invest as much money and time in decolonizing practices, involving real
experts and people of culture out of an academic process, rather than blindly perpetuating
colonial reproductions.
From a more personal perspective, I wish for my projects to reach new heights. Three years
ago, I left an executive job I had added to my dance career to create an ethical cultural and
creative company centered on North African, particularly Amazigh, culture and arts.
Our mission is to provide artistic direction, production, coaching, and consulting services to
empower individuals of our heritage in a creative and leadership approach. I have one
employee and various collaborators of similar background. I hope that this initiative
continues to grow, showing that we can also build entrepreneurial projects that align with our values.
I am honored by the trust placed in me for large-scale projects, internationally, particularly in
valorizing Amazigh women to open the way for a new generation, including my daughter and nieces, to whom I also pass on a lot.
Hoping for peace and more equality for the upcoming generation especially of girls and
women from MENA and its diaspora. www.instagram.com/raissa_lei
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