Mouaraki waited 20 years before attempting to choreograph a work dealing with such a personal aspect of his life. To make the work, Mouaraki gathered a group of artists, who could help build this concept, deciding to use only male dancers. Numerous esoteric traditions exist within the colorful tapestry of Moroccan culture and are generally practiced in brotherhoods. He explained, “I needed individuals who could share their culture and who could express their sensitivity, sensuality, and masculinity through dance, through contact, and through openness with each other.” 

Mouaraki took the dancers (trained in contemporary and urban dance) to Morocco to create the piece. He said, “I wanted them to experience the smells, the food, the visuals, the people, the air, and a lila. Day by day, the show built itself just by dancing in that environment.”

The show begins as five male dancers sit down on low piles of woven bags in a large circle. A sixth dancer enters the circle carrying a tall staff, plants its chalk tip onto the center point, and slowly draws a spiral filling the circular space. One of the seated dancers, stands and lifts a cloth bag pouring its contents of what looks like blue-colored sand (actually, rice grains) onto the floor design. Eventually, all the men empty their pile of bags filling the stage with a circular spiral of blue.

As the men stand on the periphery of the design, one dives onto the sand and then returns to stand in the circle. Each dancer takes a plunge, until they all dive to the floor together landing in various positions─in essence, to lose themselves in another dimension.

One dancer stands swaying, his arms float heavenward, as others break into urban dance stunts that grow in intensity. Their leaps and single arm handstands send the blue sand flying. In a contrasting layer of quiet, internalized energy, several dancers begin the slow spinning of Sufi whirlers. This new energy initiates an intimate, physically connected mirroring sequence between two dancers─all enveloped in the sound of winds blowing (part of Antoine Berthiaume’s evocative soundscape).