Ch’ttahh
Bilal El Had’s dance work draws on Moroccan Chaabi music, dance and symbols to explore gender norms, cultural memory and social rules.
From the listing
In Ch’ttahh (“dancer”), Bilal El Had returns to the first dance form he ever encountered: Moroccan Chaabi , a popular style of music and dance performed at weddings, street celebrations, and gatherings at home. Ch’ttahh combines his personal experience of dance with the rhythms, songs, and ancient symbols of Chaabi . It explores social gestures shaped by a long history of men challenging gender norms through dance, poetry, and music. Between tribute and innovation, humour and conflict, Ch’ttahh captures the energy of the present while looking carefully and attentively at a shared past. Through the powerful expressiveness of Chaabi , it presents dance as a way of crossing or breaking social rules, while preserving cultural memory and imagining possible futures. In English and Arabic, with Portuguese and English surtitles. On 21 November, there will be a post-show talk with Bilal El Had and Piny .