Sisters of the Seven Colours. Women, Trance, and Authority in the World of Gnawa
Zineb Majdouli, Asmaa Hamzaoui, Aicha Hamzaoui, Yousra Mansour, moderated by Alaa Zouiten
Panel Discussion
Sat., 11.7.2026
17:00–18:30
Safi Faye Hall
In French with simultaneous translation into German
Free entry
This event takes place instead of the panel discussion Neuronal Rhythms of Lila: Neurosciences and Trance, which has to be cancelled at short notice.
In the Gnawa tradition, women are rarely seen on stage—and yet it is they who carry out the ritual: as the Mqadma (leader of the ceremony), who leads the Lila (nocturnal trance ritual), and as the Majdouba (a woman possessed by spirits), who embodies the colours of the Mluk (spirit beings) in the Hal (trance state). This panel discussion brings together four women who challenge the order of this long-held tradition in their own ways: the bandleaders Asmaa Hamzaoui (Bnat Timbouktou) and Yousra Mansour (Bab L' Bluz), who have carved out their place in a male-dominated field, the trance initiator Aicha Hamzaoui (also a member of Bnat Timbouktou), and the sociologist Zineb Majdouli. Together, they ask what authority women hold within in the ritual of the Lila, why this authority often ends outside the Lila, and what it means to fight for recognition as a woman in this world of Gnawa. A conversation about power, healing, and the freedom that can arise in the moment of trance.