Morocco, USA / 2023 / 54mins / Documentary / English

In the late 1950s Hassan Ouakrim was a young dancer and actor in Morocco. Little did he know that he would soon become the protegé of La Mama Theatre founder Ellen Stewart, performing across America, forming friendships with the likes of jazz virtuosos Ornette Coleman and Randy Weston, and becoming a pioneer in spreading Berber dance and music in North America.

Hisham Aïdi

Hisham Aidi is a Moroccan-American political scientist, author, music critic, filmmaker, and senior lecturer in international relations at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His research interests include comparative race politics, art and social movements, and the political economy of development.

Director Statement ;

I am Moroccan American. My family is from the Rif region in Northern Morocco, where the Berber/Tarifit language is spoken. I have long wanted to bring attention to Berber/Amazigh culture and history in America. The Amazigh American community has grown rapidly since the mid-1990s. I have long wanted to highlight the rich cultural encounters that have occurred between North African migrants, native Americans and African Americans in the US.

I arrived in America as a sixteen year old. I have spent the past thirty years based in Harlem, writing about and working with African American, African and Hispanic organizations. I had long heard of Hassan, and when I met him in New York as a student, I was struck by his flamboyance, his cosmopolitanism and his corpus of work. Not only has he trained dozens of dancers and musicians (at his apartment, aka "Arabian Nights Studio"), and appeared in countless Off-Broadway plays, video clips and commercials but he is close friends with renowned jazz artists and American politicians. In his 60-year career, Ouakrim has brought the riches of Berber culture to America and the beauty of African American culture to North Africa. His story is critically important, as it is a story of Sufism and Saharan music in America, and the emergence of a little-known community through art and culture. Finally it is a tale of how art can allow immigrants to integrate into the American mainstream.

Learn More