We Dance

A woman carefully drapes blue white and red cloths around her hips as if she were about to begin a belly dance This reference to the cliché of oriental femininity is tellingly clothed in the colors of the French nation After a few minutes just as the body finally begins its rhythmic movements the Marseillaise blares out demonstratively The heroicnational aspect of the march music supplants the expected sensuality of the dance From the perspective of a young Algerian woman living in France Zoulikha Bouabdellah presents the history of colonialism and a postcolonial present equally marked by exoticisms and racisms in an ironic and extremely condensed form 1channel video installation color sound