Dreaming of dance

There is little money for artistic training in Tunisia; the country has neither sufficient teachers nor schools. This is about to change. An academy for dance in Dresden co-operates with the North African country.

When Yosra Zaouali for the first time entered the Palucca University of Dance, she felt instantly at home. "I was in my familiar environment", says the 13-year old. Even though everything else is different compared to her home country in the strange German city, a dance hall always remains a dance hall.

The young Tunisian is one of two guest students attending the Palucca University of Dance in Dresden this year. She comes from the coastal town of Mahdia and wants to become a professional dancer.

Yet this profession does not even officially exist in Tunisia. Those wishing to dance on a professional level have to go abroad for their training – or have to be shown the steps by someone who has learnt them. Even so, essential basic knowledge usually falls by the wayside without qualified personnel.

Yosra Zaouali owes her visit to Germany to an initiative by the Goethe Institute in Tunis, which has initiated the partnership project "Apprendre à danser – tanzen lernen" (Learning to dance) together with the prestigious Palucca University of Dance.

The institute has been supporting cultural continuing education programmes in North Africa since 2011. This is a matter close to the hearts of its employees, for in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and its wildfire-like spread, Tunisia, too, is caught in a spirit of optimism. Artistic projects are booming; the interest in dance is considerable. Yet there exist neither sufficient teachers nor training facilities. This must urgently change, says choreographer and dance teacher Malek Seba Sebaï, who in her previous career as a dancer was a member of notable companies worldwide.

Cyrine Mariem Haj Sassi has likewise benefited from her stay at the Palucca University of Dance. The initiator and project manager of "Learning to dance" has visited Palucca and the Saxonian capital twice already to gain insights into the pedagogic approaches to professional training. "This is not about copying the training concept 1:1", says the former dancer. "But we can learn a lot."

Palucca dance teacher Fernando Coelho likewise observes that the young guests from North Africa have talent and plenty of passion, but suffer from a lack of basic knowledge and especially technique. Technique is what interests 21-year old Cyrine Mariem Hay Sassi. At home in Tunisia, she teaches knowledge-hungry girls like Yosra Zaouali even though she has never had the privilege of benefiting from a proper training as a teacher. "In Dresden, they all talk about dance, even well after the end of lessons", she observed with fascination after her stay in Germany. And both Yosra Zaouali and her teacher agree: as yet, Tunisian dancers can only dream of the professionalism of the Palucca professors.

In the meantime, Fernando Coelho and his colleague Christian Canciani have travelled to Tunisia to gain their own impression of the training situation on site and to conduct first talks with the culture ministry together with choreographer Malek Sebaï. Although the Goethe Institute's "Learning to dance" project is securely funded up until 2016, the aim is to render it self-sufficient in the long term. Currently, however, shortages are evident everywhere, as the Dresden dance teachers have found out. There are neither sufficient training rooms nor training concepts and outside of the capital culture practically does not exist.

But Coelho is optimistic. "The Tunisians have a rich tradition of ethnic dances and that is an excellent basis to build upon", says the dance professional. "One just must not try to force them to adopt the European system; they have to develop their own style."

The aim is to establish academic dance training according to international standards. This requires the investment of money and in particular a lot of time – ten to twenty years, estimates Malek Sebaï and hopes also for the contribution of private money.

After all, she says, a law has come into force recently in Tunisia that allows tax benefits for patrons of the arts: "The revolution resulted in the emergence of a civil society." And her vision is that perhaps one day it will be possible to even establish free professional dance training in Tunisia.