Christine Ferhat - Moroccan Schikhatt/Sha'abi instructor & performer

[Lauren_]

I hosted Christine (our own CFerhat here on Bhuz) for a workshop on Moroccan Shickhatt last weekend. What a treat!

Christine, who is from Kansas City, was in St. Louis last summer for a workshop and performed some Schikhatt-style dancing for us. (I learned at the workshop that the dance is called Sha'abi and the dancers are the Schikhatt, so we don't say she danced Schikhatt )

Her performance was so full of joy and life and playful energy, with lots of vigorous and detailed hipwork and a finale of head and hairtossing that really moved us all, we couldn't wait to have her come teach us!

Besides being charming & fun & easy to work with, Christine is a knowledgeable, inspiring instructor and all the students adored her.

Things I loved about this workshop:

• Christine really knows her stuff. She's spent a lot of time in Morocco and has clearly paid attention.
• She broke out a lot of background info into a mini-lecture before we warmed up, so we wouldn't have to stop moving to absorb info once the dancing began.
• We warmed up in a circle, doing relevant movements, feeling the Moroccan rhythms and experiencing the community of social dance from the first minute forward.
• We were properly warmed up before we started doing any neck/head moves
• The pacing & level of the workshop were perfect for the participants
• After teaching us a vocabulary of traveling & stationary moves, Christine lined us up in facing rows and we just danced, following her for the changes. This was REALLY fun and gave us an understanding of why/how Moroccan women might enjoy dancing together... it also gave us ideas for staging a performance.
• Much to our delight, she brought several kaftans, hip belts and even some shoes and had some volunteers do a little fashion show & costuming Q&A for us. (I'd love to see appropriate costuming discussed in more detail at all folklore workshops). She even very generously let the students continue dancing in her costumes so we could get a sense of how they moved.
• The material Christine presented enhanced my students' understanding of the role of dancing in the Arab world in general

If anyone in the Midwest is in the market for a really fun folklore class, I highly recommend Christine!

[Mosaika]

Sounds awesome! Now having a DVD of that is something I'd love to buy.

[CFerhat]

Thanks so much for the kind words Lauren. I've been to quite a few workshops over the years so I thought a lot about the best way to structure the material - I'm so happy it was well-received. The students were fantastic - very engaged and game. And the hostess was a bit of all right as well.