Khadija El Warzazia’s Bnat el Houariyat & Esraa Warda | Ragas Live Festival 2022

We're pleased to present the next iteration of the festival taking place this October 14, 2023. Tickets are on sale now: https://pioneerworks.org/programs/rag...

5:30 PM Set of the 24 Hour Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works 10.23.22

In the penultimate set of the Ragas Live Festival, Khadija El Warzazia’s Bnat el Houariyat & Esraa Warda bring the house down.

Khadija El Warzazia’s Bnat el Houariyat & Esraa Warda is a pairing composed entirely of women artists: Bnat el Houariyat from the heart of Marrakech performs women’s celebratory and trance music, including chaabi and houara. The group’s percussion and call-and-response singing and complex polyrhythms build into a deeply transporting sonic experience. It is accompanied by the mesmerizing Algerian-American dancer Esraa Warda, a “rebellious spirit” known for her profound performances of the trance-like jedba hair-swaying dance.


Fatiha Benmsinane
Malika Nouader
Khadija el Warzazia
Nouzha Lagrimi
Touria Nouader
Esraa Warda: dancer


Ragas Live Festival is produced by Pioneer Works in collaboration with Brooklyn Raga Massive and the Society for Arts and Culture of South Asia (Palo Alto).

Filmed by Adrien H. Tillmann and mixed by Kane Mathis.

Ragas Live is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Brooklyn Arts Council. Brooklyn Arts Fund (DCLA) is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.

Originally broadcast on www.wkcr.org and podcast at www.nycradiolive.org.