The Guedra is also done in Morocco, on the NW coast of Africa. Each movement has a meaning, and the dancer will honor the four directions, as well as the sky and earth. She will flick love and healing with her hands after pulling it in from the six directions.

The first part of the dance is done standing, which is called the T’bal; it only becomes the Guedra when the dancer drops to her knees, and begins moving

The dancer is also called the Guedra, since it seems that as she channels the energy of the 4 directions, she becomes one with the rhythm and represents the energy. The whole community is close around the dancer, and the men will call out a new dancer, after the first one collapses after having danced for hours.

Here in the US, it is a different kind of experience. The ritual is done in a performance basis, only a few minutes long, and the audiences are not too familiar with what is going to happen. It is not often that the whole crowd will clap throughout the whole set.

For this dancer, though, the audiences have been very enthusiastic, and have clapped, zaghareeted, and even drummed and played dijeridoo during the ritual. This is a different kind of energy than what the Tuareg imagined, I guess.. But, the beauty of this is that the Guedra is being incorporated into Western ways of experience.

It is very inspiring if the audience can clap to the rhythm, so that this becomes  a more realistic community event, rather than just a performance. The rhythm is a 1-2 beat, to simulate the human heartbeat. The chants are Islamic in nature, but this dancer normally avoids movements with any Islamic-influenced gestures. They are usually more Earth-religion oriented

For my partner, Ingrid, and I, we are starting to use the Guedra in our healing through dance and writing workshops. We have seen a great interest in using movement to heal from trauma that many of us survive, and it seems that the Guedra has moves that are  helpful and healing.very      Lucy Lipschitz