Performing Tangier:  Borders, Beats, and Beyond

Tangier, Morocco , Chellah Hotel, May 16, 17, 18, 19, 2008

Organized by
Research Group of Performance Studies, Abdelmalek Essaâdi University , Morocco
University of London Institute in Paris
Middle East Center , Middle Tennessee State University , USA
Department of European Languages University of Wales , Aberysthwith , UK
International Center for Performance Studies, Tangier, Morocco

Tangier, as a site of trans-cultural encounters in art, literature, music.

About a hundred speakers (academics, writers, curators, painters, publishers and film producers, among others) from 12 different countries and Universities such as Granada, Harvard, Santa Barbara California, Naples, Paris and Tennessee University,  have participated in this conference, in which Arabic, Tamazight, French, Spanish, and English are all official languages. The various panels explored the intriguing historical relationship between Beat figures and Tangier, as well as re-examining the relationship between international writers in Tangier and their portrait of the other in a city of trans-cultural encounters in literature, visual art and music. Building on three previous conferences (“Writing Tangier,” “Voices of Tangier,” and “Performing/Picturing Tangier”), continuing evaluation of specific writers and artists who have come to or out of Tangier includes the oral tradition of some of these storytellers and artists who were translated by the existentialist writer Paul Bowles, as well as modernist painters like Matisse, dramatists such as Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and the “Beats” such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsburg and others, as well as more general movements associated with the various African, Andalusian or Islamic influences present in Tangier. The conference considered the relationship between the Beat Generation and Spanish writers such as Emilio Sanz de Soto through the enigmatic literary figure of George Solomos (Themistocles Hoetis) and projected the visions of Tangier in modern Spanish Literature, through a discussion of seven writers in the Cervantes Institute in Tangier.

Thanks to our external sponsors: Ministry of Culture, Morroco; Wilaya of Tangier-Tetouan; Embassy of the United States, Morocco; Embassy of Germany, Morocco; Cervantes Institute, Tangier; Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development; Regional Council of Tangier-Tetouan; Administrative District of Tangier city; Direction of Cap radio, Tangier; Al Omrane Al boughaz; Tingis Edition; La Chronique de Tanger; Le Journal de Tanger; CHELLAH Hotel; Ministry of Tourism, delegation of Tangier; French Institute of Tangier-Tetouan.

•  Khalid Amine , Research Group of Performance Studies, Abdelmalek Essaâdi University, Tétouan & International Center For Performance Studies, Morocco khamine@hotmail.com
•  Andrew Hussey , University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP), nuh@aber.ac.uk
•  Allen Hibard , Middle Tennessee State University , USA , ahibbard@mtsu.edu
•  Barry Tharaud , San Diego State University , U.S.A. and Dogus University , Istanbul, barrytharaud@yahoo.com
•  José Manuel Goñi Pérez , Department of European Languages, University of Wales , Aberystwyth, jsg@aber.ac.uk
•  Alfred Hackensberger , Poet , Germany , hackensberger@hotmail.com