The artist's new documentary upgrades him from art-scene superstar to Moroccan folk hero
The last time you encountered Hassan Hajjaj may have been at his pop-up riad at Sole DXB —a riot of colour and his trademark remix of Moroccan cultural references conceived for the 10th anniversary edition of the annual footwear, music, art, and lifestyle festival that he was invited to curate. Or perhaps, more recently, at FIQ!, what can only be described as a high-energy, head-spinning, hip-hop circus of young acrobats from Tangier against the backdrop of the Larache-born multidisciplinary artist’s visual universe at The Red Theatre at NYU Abu Dhabi.
However, a new documentary commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation in celebration of 30 years of the Sharjah Biennial is a bold departure from the Hajjaj you may recognise. Yet, paradoxically, it might just be his most revealing work to date.
Following his 2015 debut, Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl, the film sheds light on two traditions: Gnawa, defined by UNESCO as “a set of musical events, performances, fraternal practices and therapeutic rituals mixing the secular with the sacred,” and Afro-Brazilian cultural practice Capoeira, which UNESCO describes as “simultaneously a fight and a dance that can be interpreted as a tradition, a sport and even an art form”.
Both have origins in the imperialist slave trade, and both were inscribed onto the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019 and 2014 respectively.
Lensed in Morocco and Brazil, and making a compelling connection between both cultures, the film is a tale of two masters of Gnawa and Capoeira—Maalem Marouane Lbahja and Mestre Pastel—brought to life by their powerful presence and mesmerising performances and processions in the opening week of Sharjah Biennial 15. Here Hajjaj, himself a capoeirista, explains why Brothahood is a passion project that was two decades in the making, and why he’s not expecting you to like it.
ESQUIRE: At this point, Hassan Hajjaj is the Middle East’s favourite son. What keeps drawing you back to the region?
HASSAN HAJJAJ: I’ll take it. Hopefully the region is interested in what I do. It’s never been a plan. Everything happened naturally, and sometimes as an artist, you end up in certain places quite regularly so it really feels like home. And also, it’s important for an artist like myself to have my people give me that tick, instead of me being known in the Western world and not have the kind of following and the pride from my region.
For you as a documentary filmmaker, how does Brothahood differ from Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl?
With every film, if it’s a character I’m choosing, I’ll want to show their story, their strength, and who they are. But Brothahood was more experimental. I had two or three cameras at the same time to make it a bit more cinematic. The most difficult part was the lockdown.
I was in Marrakech so it was easier to film the Gnawa because I was there, but even that was hard because we had the curfew at eight o’clock and you couldn’t have any more than 30 people in a scene where you would normally have hundreds, so I had to cut my crew, and feature just a few people to give ambience. Also we could only film during the day but had to create a vibe as if it was night-time. So it gave a different energy as well, because when it’s night-time, you kind of let go.
For Brazil I had a window of time to shoot, edit, and deliver it in time for the opening week of the Sharjah Biennial, and it was pushed and pushed. The last window was the end of June, beginning of July and if didn’t go then, the film probably wouldn’t have even be finished by now. So then I went, and it was easy in Brazil. Nobody came and asked about the drone or about why you’re filming there, it was just filmed. Pastel and the other capoieristas are known in the city so that made it easy for me as well.
Why was this project 20 years in the making?
In the beginning, it was a dream for me that I thought would be too hard to do because it involved filming across two countries which is expensive.
The first time I combined Capoeira with Gnawa was a live show for the opening the Gnawa and World Music Festival in Essaouira in 2001. I presented the project for the first time in 1999 and they didn’t go for it for the first year. Then the second year, they saw the fusion was there and I had two weeks to come up with a show. So it started there, and as time went by, I had built up a storyline in my head which was all outdoors.
The more time you have, the more you have everything clear in your head but the budget pushed towards AED750,000 to AED1 million for the whole project. Every now and then, I had somebody saying “Oh, do you have anything you want to see if we can talk about?” but it was always too expensive. I still really believed in it. It was hard.
How did Brothahood find its way to Sharjah Biennial 15?
It took the pandemic. [HH Sheikha] Hoor Al Qasimi [President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation] came for a discussion with the team at my place in London and was telling me about the Biennial and the curator Okwui Enwezor who had just passed away, Godbless him. He left a whole list of points for the Biennial that he wanted Hoor to continue so
I said, “I hope you love this idea.” Having been developing it for 20 years, Brothahood shared so many of these points. They gave me two weeks to present it because they’d already chosen all the artists so I’d be one of the last ones coming in.
So I had to sit down and really reconfigure the whole idea because then I knew it was going to be inside because of COVID. I was thinking, “What do I do? How about if I focused on the people that are involved that never get seen?” The drum makers, the shoe maker, the castanet maker, the outfit makers, because they’re all part of the practice, they all have a role. That’s what I presented to them, and they said, “Go ahead!” And then it was making it, basically. It was a tough one. In a good way.
Your portraits span from Billie Eilish and Cardi B to the female biker gangs of Morocco in your ’Kesh Angels series. You’ve told me in the past that what your subjects all have in common is their energy. Tell us about the energy that drew you into this project…
Every person in Brothahood has a strong character. So for me, they’re my people to approach to shoot. In a way, the celebrity stuff came later on because of people like this. People discovered my work and wanted to be part of my world because I shoot real people— it could be capoeirista, a boxer and so on. So that’s really my attraction. I would choose any one of them to be my subject.
Brothahood is a stark contrast to the vibrant, kitsch, pop-art work you’re known and loved for. Are you deliberately challenging your audience or are you just showing us newfacets of yourself?
I’m not challenging the audience, I’m just doing something that’s personal. If I have an audience, I don’t think this is going to be a film for them. There’s going be a percentage of people who would like this film as it’s a bit more personal.
My first documentary, Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl, was a bit more connected to my stills. Brothahood is going to be different. I don’t think it’s going to be about the quantity of people, it’s probably going to be about the quality of people—those that might take interest in films that deal with movement, dance, and practices like Gnawa and Capoeira.
There may be a new audience of Capoeira and Gnawa followers and hopefully also universities and colleges wanting to understand more about different cultures. I’m curious, but I’m already expecting that it’s not going to be for my whole audience, if I do have an audience, that is!
Does that matter?
As an artist, not everybody’s going like your work. Maybe some see the works differently to the way you’ve intended. So this is something I’ve learned along the way. I’ve been shown for coming up to 30 years, so I’ve learned a lot from how people see my work.
I think the subject matter really has to really resonate for someone to ride along the film for the hour and a half, but really, for me, I made sure not to get it wrong for the Capoeira world and Gnawa world, because I’m playing with other people’s lives and their practices and belief and tradition, so I don’t want to mess that up. So for me, if the masters are happy, and obviously if Sharjah Art Foundation is happy, I’ve won. From now onwards, this is for the people.
More than a multidisciplinary artist, we think one day the world will remember Hassan Hajjaj as a Moroccan folk hero.
Inshallah. Artists live their life within their art, so you don’t realise the effect it has or how people see it. If there’s a flame that’s following you, and it keeps burning and going strong, then it’s good. There’s been a long year of life to get to this point, and I haven’t really had time to digest how Brothahood has been received, or what it’s going to do because I’m still actually in the moment.
The film is personal. For people who follow my work, it’s not going to be for everybody, but for me, it was made from my personal point of view—from my selfish point of view—but more for the teachers from the cultures of Morocco and Brazil. I decided not show the film to the masters—any of them—until they came to Sharjah for the world premiere. So when I took them to see it at the Biennial, it really was a beautiful moment. That was the time I was probably most nervous because they’re my friends now, and I’m projecting what I’m thinking of them and thinking of the idea, but they both loved it. And they gave me more respect and that was really the important part.
From Esquire Middle East website
