"Algeria Moves!"
"Music, Dance, and Women's Resilience"
June 11, 2021
Thursday, April 23, 2026, 7:30 PM
Street and Davis Performance Hall, Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre
$25 general admission
$10 students with ID and youth 18 and under
15%-25% subscription discounts available
Individual tickets on sale Thursday, July 31, 10 AM
"As both an artist and a teacher, Warda, who is Algerian American, takes the North African dances she learned as a child and brings them to the stage and dance studio. Highlighting the musicality and endurance required for these styles, Warda shows that they are legitimate art forms, with specific techniques that change from one region and musical genre to the next."
— The New York Times
Programmed by and featuring guest curator Esraa Warda
A rendezvous of music, voice, and danced stories highlight the artistry and spirit of Algeria — an often underrepresented yet deeply rich cultural landscape.
Performer and educator Esraa Warda is a pioneer of traditional Algerian dance, specializing in traditional and popular forms like Raï, Chaoui, and Assimi. In performance, Warda harnesses the Algerian body and traditional feminine form to embody decoloniality and boldly subvert the cliches of the North African woman.
For Algeria Moves!, Warda is joined directly from Algeria by her band, Kaièn — five gifted musicians (Youcef Grim, percussion; Youva Bessa, bass; Rami Bekhouche, piano; Omar Bourai: violin/strings; and Toufik Aoun, lead singer) — for an evening rooted in the revival of Algerian heritage music, celebrating the powerful intersection of heritage, performance, and social progress through the universal language of music and dance.
About the Performance
“With Kaièn's performance in Algeria Moves!, my dance becomes a doorway — inviting U.S. audiences into the power and poetry of Algerian sound, many for the first time. It’s a rare moment where Algerian music and dance simply take space, fully and on their own terms. Every act of Algerian artists on stage is a step closer to the decolonization of our image, and of all people from North Africa. The most invigorating part of this curatorship journey has been building community around this event. With each visit to Virginia Tech, the energy grows — momentum, support, and most beautifully, curiosity. That quiet anticipation, the kind, genuine care, has been the heart of it all.”
— Esraa Warda, guest curator
Esraa Warda
In 2024 Warda appeared on a PBS episode of Bare Feet with Michela Malozzi, speaking about the movement and history of Algerian Raï dance, and performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk with Bnat el Houariyat, an all-women’s band from Marrakech. Warda has been featured in the New York Times, VOGUE Arabia, and The Metric, and was named one of BBC's 100 Women in 2022.
Warda's performances and teachings have been featured in prestigious venues in the U.S. and around the world, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, Old Town School of Folk Music, OXY Arts, Georgetown University, New York University, University of Ottawa, the Movement Lab at Barnard College, Rich Mix (U.K.), Mosaic Rooms (U.K.), La Fleche D’or (France), FGO Barbara (France), TivoliVredenburg (the Netherlands), Casa Arabe (Spain), Danza Teatro Retazos (Cuba), Opera D’Alger (Algeria), and many more.
Warda is a Heritage Ambassador Fellow at the Brooklyn Public Library, an artist in the competitive Joe's Pub Working Group Fellowship at the Public Theater, a 2024 recipient of the New York State Council of the Arts Artist Grant, and is currently fiscally sponsored and supported by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
Warda led an Algerian Raï Dance Workshop in February 2025. This is Kaièn's first performance at the center.