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With his old-fashioned moustache, his bell belts, and measuring six feet tall, Achraf El Abed is a professional dancer of female folk dance from Maghreb. In Tunisia, he is a celebrity who dances, yes, but in the manner of women. Something shocking, or at least surprising. Gay and an activist through his art, facing death threats in his country, he has been a refugee in Canada since 2022. However, nothing takes his heart away from Tunisia, which he loves above all and which he hopes to return to again one day.
“I am Amazigh, African, Arab, Muslim and I have a German-Jewish grandfather... I represent Tunisia and all its combinations. When I dance, it smells like bled,” explains Achraf El Abed with a laugh. “I recreate the Tunisian atmosphere and that's why people come to see me perform. And believe me, in Tunisia, we know how to party! ” says the man who dusted off a dance that was long reserved for the working classes and was somewhat denigrated for the same reason. Like Proust's Madeleine, it revives the memories of the Tunisian diaspora, but also Maghreb and Middle Eastern Quebec.
La Converse met him at home, in his universe, music by Oum Kalthoum playing in the background, to discuss his life, his artistic career and his activism. Smiling and welcoming, he proudly wears his rings, earrings and a large fan with “Love” written on it.
Dancing like women has always been a passion
It was at the age of four that it all started for Achraf El Abed. “I remember it as if it were yesterday. At the wedding of one of my cousins, my mother surprised the bride and groom. She went on stage with a wig, an oriental dancer outfit and she danced. Nobody recognized her, but I did. I remember her red dress embroidered with silver, I remember everything. I discovered dance that day. I was blown away. Since then, I have never stopped dancing,” he recalls.
Achraf El Abed grew up in a close-knit family in the La Marsa district of Tunis, surrounded by his mother, his aunts, and especially his beloved grandmother, the matriarch. “I was raised in a multi-generational home and I discovered my feminine side through contact with all these women who taught me freedom. The context was not obvious because my mother, as a divorcee at a time when there were few divorces, experienced discrimination. I grew up inspired by her strength,” he says.
“When I was five, my mom put a scarf on my hips at a birthday party and I danced like her. Everyone cheered for me. I felt so happy, I was on stage for the first time," he confides with emotion. "Since then, I have danced with major Tunisian companies, on stages all over the world. However, I never reached that joy again.”
During his early childhood, Achraf El Abed therefore danced imitating his mother, under the charmed gaze of his family. “And then one day, around the age of eight, I was told to stop dancing, it's for women. I was not criticized for dancing, because men dance in Tunisia, but the way I danced. As long as I was a kid, I was encouraged. Then all of a sudden it stopped. The only question I was asking myself was: why? ” he continues. A total misunderstanding for the child, plunged suddenly into a logic imposed by society. However, he continued, but only when he was alone and felt safe. And always with that feeling of shame, of Hchouma, a Maghreb word that refers to scandal but also to the modesty that must be shown in society.
The Stambeli, the dance dance inherited from slaves
It is the stambeli, a Tunisian spiritual dance inherited from enslaved Black populations, that will allow him to dance again in front of an audience. “I grew up with this ancestral ritual of dances and music, thanks to my family, and especially my grandmother, who organized stambeli gatherings at home every year. It has always been part of my family,” explains Achraf El Abed. “This spiritual tradition is not gendered. At the age of twelve, I danced to call the spirits, as the Stambeli tradition dictates, and I called the feminine spirits. No matter how I danced, I was legitimate,” he shares.
In a society where the male body dominates, the Stambeli offers a space where the feminine divine and the masculine divine are equal. So men and women cross the gender border, often by cross-dressing, to call on spirits and saints. When he understood that he was gay, as a teenager, Achraf El Abed felt particularly at home in this community where gender was blurred. “I didn't need to advertise my sexuality, I was part of this spiritual community and I was accepted for who I was.”
In his adolescent life, Achraf El Abed also continues to dance: “I used to secretly go out to gay friendly bars and nightclubs in Tunis. 'Homosexuality' is not said in these bars, but everyone knows it. It was there, the first time I danced on a table. It was an incredible feeling.”
Liberation through dance
It was at university that he really took off and discovered who he was. “I discovered in college what it meant to be gay. I also discovered culture, beauty, life. I have freed myself.” To continue dancing, he joined a body performance club. Self-taught and as soon as he joined the club, he was spotted for his talent. Even though he had no experience, a teacher invited him to perform a show alongside a ballerina. “I had no experience. However, she said to me: 'Yes, you are a professional dancer. You have something, trust yourself.' That's where it all started.”
Very quickly, he danced with the greatest performers in Tunisia. He combines his knowledge of Stambeli with street jazz, contemporary music... He observes, learns quickly and performs by improvising. One of the masters of the national ballet of Tunisia, among the founders of the national dance troupe of Tunisia, took him under his wing. With his troupe, he is invited to dance all over the country and is increasingly integrating Tunisian folk dance. “For me, the Chaabi Tunsi, it's pure joy. Men have always danced, if only because women were not allowed to dance in the presence of men for a long time. Either the male dancers concealed their masculine attributes under a veil, or they cross dresed. I was fortunate to be one of the last students of a cross-dressing dancer. For me, dancing was liberating because I could not openly say that I was gay. I said it while dancing,” he confides.
Little by little, he stopped designing and the applied arts from which he graduated and which made him a living, to devote himself full-time to this art. Tunisian folk dance, long underestimated, is gaining momentum and Achraf El Abed is increasingly in demand for tours in Tunisia and internationally.
He stayed true to the Stambeli during the day. But at night, he proudly wore his bells on his feet, his jewelry and his feminine outfits embroidered in silk, and danced the Chaabi. His family, at the time, did not know that he went from performing the sacred Stambeli dance to the female Chaabi. “They learned it when they saw me dance on television. My whole family told me it was shameful, Hchouma. For my dad, I've ruined our family's name. I haven't seen my stepbrothers on my dad's side for ten years. My mom tried to convince me to stop. How could I do that to her, the divorced woman who was already stigmatized... But I don't regret anything. My legitimacy on stage gives me confidence in relation to my family. I don't care what people think now. What do you mean, that I am gay? Well yes”, he assumes.
Harassed, insulted and adored at the same time
Achraf El Abed became famous in Tunisia. However, this popularity put him in danger: society stigmatizes and condemns homosexuality. It is also a crime punishable by three years in prison under article 230 of the penal code, inherited from French colonization.
Harassed, insulted and adored at the same time, sometimes by the same people, he no longer went out without headphones on his ears and sunglasses on his face. His brother lost his job several times because he was the brother of “the dancer.” “At first, I was impassive. Then, when it started affecting my family, I started to respond and defend myself, it really touched me. I was experiencing cyberbullying, street harassment. My mother was afraid reading the press and social networks, she said to me 'Achraf, they are going to kill you.' I received two serious death threats and when I went to the police, the police officer told me that all I had to do was stop dancing. But dancing is my whole life! ” he explains.
Finding refuge in Montreal
“I didn't want to leave Tunisia. I love my country. I have never felt as much love as at home, despite the difficulties. When I learned that wherever I performed, a man I didn't know was looking for me, I realized that I was really in danger. I opened my passport and looked at which of my foreign visas were still valid. I had one for Canada because I had been invited there for a series of performances. Without telling anyone, I left. Initially, it was to flee this harassment, not necessarily to stay in Montreal. I was hosted for two months by a Tunisian friend, who is also an activist, and I finally decided to stay and seek asylum. I love Montreal. I am trying to recreate a 'family' here: dancers, people from the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, refugees...” says Achraf El Abed. “I obviously feel all the more at ease at the intersection of struggles, with Arab LGBTQIA+ people. With them, I don't feel judged.”
Achraf El Abed continues to perform in Quebec: Orientalys Festival, Arab World Festival, community days, Arab evenings such as Laylit or Haram Party, artistic residencies... Since his arrival in April 2022, he has performed almost 300 times.
However, even in Montreal, the insults continue. In addition to homophobic insults, there are racist insults the dancer must suffer, especially on social networks. “I am a Tunisian, Muslim man who dances a feminine dance. I don't have to justify myself,” shares the dancer who continues to defend LGBTQIA+ rights and his art in panels and conferences. He also hopes to contribute to changing the image of North Africans, Arabs and Muslims. “Many people imagine us as violent mustachioed machos, living in our tents, in the desert. I am helping to change that image. I am proud to be who I am. I have received an inheritance. Certainly a legacy in a box, but I think outside of this box.”