They live on the streets of Tangier - without jobs, prospects and money.

They are well connected through social media.

They criticize their situation.

But this group is different from the other youth movements.

Her means of resistance is acrobatics.

Their social protest is expressed in daring stunts and piercing music.

The Groupe Acrobatique de Tangier was formed years after the "Arab Spring".

It's the post-revolutionary generation that's still angry, and it's bringing that anger into their circus arts.

Kevin Hanschke

volunteer.

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The Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen has recognized the potential that the “Cirque Nouveau”, the “New Circus”, has for presenting social problems, especially in the Global South, and has therefore dedicated a separate program series to it for the first time.

Eleven productions will be performed: from France and Finland, North Africa and Great Britain.

But two evenings are particularly impressive.

The socio-critical and revolutionary piece "Fiq - Wake Up" by the Tangier troupe and the hidden-object liberation game "Exit" by the French circus collective Cirque Inextremiste.

"Fiq" tells the story of the Moroccan acrobats, from the first meeting to the performance.

The fifteen circus members show their social reality - the football tricks in the city's parks, hanging out on crates of drinks or courtship while riding motorbikes.

Since 2018, the company has been casting young talents across the country.

Each of the acrobats has a different background: hip-hop, breakdance, clowning, acrobatics, soccer or taekwondo.

Director Maroussia Diaz Verbèke wonderfully combines the disciplines with the personal stories of the performers.

Breakdance moves and quiet choirs

The soundtrack to this special circus was written by DJ Dino, Algeria's most famous disc jockey, celebrated in the clubs of Paris, London and New York.

He is also part of the performance, appears in a black suit with sunglasses and plays his set like a conductor who drives his orchestra to peak performance.

The boys perform breakdance moves, the young women sing first in a very low voice and then louder in a choir.

Poetic text fragments on the subject of escape are repeatedly faded in: “Life can be as sweet as candy.

Don't throw it away."

Two of the artists want to leave Morocco.

Whether they make it remains to be seen.

Loud shouts - "Wake up!

Wake up!” – always lead us out of the dream world, onto the streets of Tangier with the music, the colorful clothes and the lust and frustration of the young people.

Much of what moves young Morocco has to do with Western pop culture, but the group from Tangier also wants to integrate traditional Moroccan acrobatics into the scenery.

In one scene, the group sits down on the crates of drinks and discusses the country's current political problems – women's rights, the issue of abortion, youth unemployment or authoritarianism.

Social criticism and struggle for freedom

“The richest 2 percent of the planet owns 50 percent of the wealth on earth.

The rest owns half.”

what to do

Again, everyone comes on stage in colorful dresses and suits, with hopeful inscriptions like "L'humanité", "la jeunesse" and "la justice".

The black walls and floors are torn out, behind which are colorful cloths and richly decorated ornaments.

Hassan Hajjaj designed these stage worlds.

He is known as "Andy Warhol's Marrakesh".