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Women’s Hadra Festival in Essaouira: A Symbolic Acknowledgment of Women’s Voices
Essaouira hosted the tenth edition of the Women’s Hadra and Music of the State Festival, organized by the Essaouira Hderat Association under the leadership of artist Latifa Boumzag. This cultural experience transcended the ordinary artistic event, embedding itself within a profound symbolic project that sought to interrogate the status of women’s Hadra within the interpretative framework of Moroccan Sufi heritage. The festival successfully transitioned spiritual memory from the realm of recall to a new interpretation, highlighting female expressions as an original component that long remained confined to oral traditions and closed rituals.
This edition began with a critical awareness affirming that women’s Hadra is neither a folkloric form nor a marginal celebratory performance, but rather an independent aesthetic and cognitive framework that has historically contributed to constructing the Moroccan spiritual imagination, shaping a special relationship between the body and remembrance, voice and ecstasy, and ritual time and collective memory. The festival reinforced this perception by reinstating the female voice as a symbolic actor in the production of Sufi meaning, rather than merely an instrumental performer within a ready-made system.
The festival’s activities were inaugurated on December 19, 2025, with a celebratory procession in Moulay Hassan Square, marking a significant shift from the closed ritual space to the open public arena. Here, women’s Hadra was revived within the urban landscape as a living physical-auditory discourse that deeply engaged with the city and its inhabitants. This choice reflected a forward-thinking cultural consciousness, reintegrating women’s spiritual memory into the fabric of daily life, reconnecting what had been severed between ritual and public space.
The program continued that evening at the Essaouira Cultural Center, where official speeches were delivered by the administration and the regional department of the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication – Culture Sector. This institutional presence symbolized the transition of women’s Hadra from the margins to a recognized cultural domain, moving from silent memory to legitimate cultural action, in line with the increasing national and international interest in safeguarding intangible heritage.
As for the artistic aspect, the event opened with rich spiritual and musical performances that showcased the regional diversity of Moroccan women’s Hadra. The program featured the Awlad Shta group performing Hassani arts from Tata, the Essaouira Hderat representing the host city, and the Aisha Dakkali troupe from Salé. These performances revealed the unity of Sufi references within the diversity of their local manifestations, with rhythms, movements, and voices converging in a shared emotional experience that drew notable public interaction and a large attendance, infusing the evenings with exceptional enthusiasm and stunning brilliance.
On the second day, December 20, 2025, the festival moved to deepen the intellectual and cognitional aspects of women’s Sufi experience through a roundtable held at the House of Memory on the topic “Women in Sufi Experience,” moderated by Dr. Nour Eddin Douniaji. This meeting became a fertile moment for collective reflection on women’s roles within the Sufi field and their contributions to producing spiritual meaning, formulating symbols, and affirming ethical and aesthetic values in Moroccan culture.
The program also included a critical presentation titled “Women’s Hadra in Hassani Culture: The ḳdrah Dance as a Model,” delivered by researcher and critic Ibrahim Al-Hessin, introduced by critic and artist Shafik Al-Zakari. This presentation approached Hadra as a complex anthropological structure in which body, ritual, and collective memory intersect, creating a dialectical relationship that renders movement a form of remembrance, and rhythm a tool for evoking absence and intensifying spiritual presence.
Additionally, the event featured the launch of “Sufism and Form,” a collection in French by poet and visual artist Lababa Laalej, with selected readings in Arabic presented by translator and critic Dr. Abdallah Al-Sheikh. This moment stood out as a luminous highlight of the festival, where poetry, visual art, and Sufi experience intertwined in a profound contemplative space, transforming creativity into a realm of remembrance, formal language into an extension of the spirit, and poetry into a bridge between the visible and the invisible.
The festival concluded that evening at the Essaouira Cultural Center with dazzling artistic performances by the Essaouira Hderat Girls’ Troupe, the Benouassat Girls’ Troupe from Marrakech, and Hind Naeira’s Gnawa troupe from Essaouira. These concluding nights, marked by significant public attendance and notable enthusiasm, affirmed that women’s Hadra is not merely a remnant of the past, but a vibrant practice of memory, a renewed space for producing spirituality, and a cultural bridge connecting heritage and innovation, restoring to women their symbolic and cognitive significance in preserving Moroccan Sufi memory within a contemporary context.
