Bilal El Had
Ch'ttahh
In Ch’ttahh, Bilal El Had returns to the dance form of his youth: Moroccan Chaabi, the popular dance and folk music inextricably linked to weddings, living room parties, and street celebrations. The piece intertwines contemporary dance with the centuries-old rhythms, songs, and symbols of Chaabi. Through a play of gestures, El Had explores the long history of men challenging gender conventions in dance, poetry, or music.
By exposing the disruption of conventional masculinity inherent in Chaabi, Bilal El Had allows echoes from the archive to collide with contemporary bodies. In doing so, he demonstrates through choreography how social norms are embodied, enforced, and defied. The transformative potential of the dance surfaces, via the expressive intensity of Chaabi, to preserve cultural memory and, simultaneously, to cautiously chart a course for the future.
Between tribute and renewal, humour and indictment, Ch’ttahh channels the explosiveness of the present, to cast a loving glance at a collective past.
Bilal El Had (b. 1991) is a Moroccan dancer and performer who lives and works in Brussels. After training at P.A.R.T.S., he has collaborated as a performer with (among others) Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Salva Sanchis, Radouan Mriziga, Laurent Chétouane, and Maud Blandel. He is currently developing his own work as a choreographer, focusing on the relationship between music and dance as a space within which traditional forms, cultural memory, and collective consciousness can intersect and transform.
Artistic direction & choreography Bilal El Had⎪Performer Bilal El Had ⎪Music producer Reda Senhaji (Cheb Runner) ⎪Dramaturgical advisor Daniel Blanga Gubbay ⎪Assistant Théo Livesey ⎪Sound designer Milan Van Doren ⎪Light designer Ivan Cascon ⎪Set designer Théo Demans ⎪Costume designers Cyril Bourez & Adam Halleux ⎪Video editor Nadav Direktor ⎪External eye Maud Blandel ⎪Production manager Rosine Bey ⎪Executive production Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre, Les Halles de Schaerbeek ⎪Co-production Charleroi Danse, DE SINGEL, Kaaitheater, KunstenwerkplaatsKWP, Les Brigittines, workspacebrussels, L’Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, La Fondation Royaumont – Centre international pour les artistes de la musique et de la danse, La Briqueterie CDCN Val-de-Marne, Le Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg - Scène européenne, Points Communs Nouvelle scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d'Oise ⎪Support Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie ⎪Residency support Charleroi Danse, DE SINGEL, Kaaitheater, Kunstenwerkplaats KWP, workspacebrussels, Ultima Vez ⎪Special thanks Pôle international de production et de diffusion Ailleurs & Ici, Youness Khoukhou
