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K.E.K.A.

Khadija El Kharraz Alami is an entrepreneur and artistic director of KEKA productions and the K.E.K.A. Foundation.

In 2018, she began creating her own work and, under the wing of Theater Rotterdam, produced her solo performance NU BEN IK MEDEA(Now I Am Medea). This production received several nominations and awards, launching Khadija into the performing arts scene in the Netherlands and Belgium. In October 2023, she performed in the English-language adaptation Nu är jag Medea in collaboration with Riksteatern, which toured Sweden for five weeks and was very well received.

In 2020, she was invited by the Kaaitheater to perform in the main theater. At that time, Khadija developed RE-CLAIMING SPACE, a concept in which she invites an artist she has never met before. The audience witnesses this first encounter. The performance was so well received that it unexpectedly went on tour in 2022, with performances in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Ghent, and Antwerp. In 2023, she performed again in Brussels during the first edition of the biennial festival It takes a city.

In 2021, Khadija became artist-in-residence at De Singel in Antwerp, where she created The Waves (2022) and ENSEMBLE PIECE (2023). She is currently touring with her new performance AJJIT, created in collaboration with Reda Senhaji (Cheb Runner) in 2025. March 2026 will see the premiere of her new creation SHRINE, with the Belgian premiere at De Singel and the Dutch premiere at the SPRING Festival.

In addition to creating her own work, Khadija mentors creators, artists, students, and organizations. She is a guest lecturer at KASK in Ghent and at the conservatory in Antwerp, and gives workshops at various locations. She also works as a concept developer, co-researcher, director, and writer. She has directed several performances, including for Club Gewalt, and is collaborating with Bodil Matheeuwsen as co-screenwriter on a film script.

Collaborating partners: De Singel, Kaaitheater, Kunstenwerkplaats, De Brakke Grond, NtGent, BUDA, Theater Rotterdam, SPRING Festival, Riksteatern, HNT, production house Ourobouros

Khadija El Kharraz Alami is based in Brussels.

Complete Curriculum Vitae of Khadija El Kharraz Alami

Photo by Salahedinne EL Bouaaichi

El Kharraz Alami has developed an essayistic approach within her artistic practice. She starts with a question that moves her from within and then seeks out the necessary study material: essays, archives, films, and music. She then translates these theories into practice by integrating the story—whether written by herself or taken from the repertoire—into her research.

Her work requires an active attitude from the audience. Due to the immersive nature of her performances, the audience plays a role in the narrative and is immersed in other worlds. In this way, she actively tries to increase empathy. In her solo performance NU BEN IK MEDEA (NOW I AM MEDEA), for example, she searches for Jason in the audience, for the chorus, Medea, and herself. In doing so, she makes the audience feel that we are more alike than different, and that we all carry a Medea within us.

In RE-CLAIMING SPACE, she stimulates openness and wonder by inviting an artist she has never met before onto the stage. The audience witnesses this encounter. Because both are exploring unfamiliar territory, she invites the audience to embrace the unknown and transparently shows what 'not knowing' can give us. By actively involving the audience—they are allowed to ask questions that are immediately transformed into assignments—different scenes are created. The audience contributes to the narrative and performance, making it tangible how we are jointly responsible for the narratives we tell and the societies we shape.

Her practice prioritizes the importance of research, education, experimentation, craftsmanship, and society. Khadija works from a personal source and draws inspiration from events, relationships, and people in her own life. She comes from a working-class background and grew up in a migrant family in the west. Themes such as institutional racism, sexism, and the struggle for justice regularly recur in her work.

By visibly questioning all conventions and norms within theater laws, she consciously chooses to disrupt. Disrupting in order to reprogram, actively questioning the normative and at the same time making a proposal. With her performances, she makes a proposal for the future by creating worlds, movements, and archetypes in the here and now. She shines a light on voices, individuals, and communities that would otherwise be forgotten.

Her curiosity about parallel worlds, myths, spirituality, trance states, and the physical awakening of the pre-capitalist body stimulates her imagination. Inspired by Angela Davis, she creates work in an attempt to build the liberated human being. In this way, she shows people searching for identity and failing to find it. Khadija is a courageous, idiosyncratic, and daring creator who breaks taboos. In her work, she explores how humans approach the unknown in search of themselves, love, and loneliness.

Stiching K.E.K.A. (
) stichtingkeka@gmail.com

Chamber of Commerce number 84111348
RSIN 863100302

Organization
Khadija El Kharraz Alami
Lena Meijer – project manager
Juul Spoor – business manager


Board Joost de Kleine Beek – Chairperson
Julia van Santbrink – Treasurer
Demelza Wener – Secretary
Mathilde Breunis Janjac – General Board Member

Homepage photo by Houcem Bellakoud
Ajjit Khadija El Kharraz-36
Shrine

SHRINE is an immersive theater performance that tells the story of a daughter who seeks refuge with the Servant Djinns, non-human beings, in a parallel world to ours. She, the Daughter, who carries the greatest pain, sorrow, and grief, is wanted by the government. Her mother was brutally murdered by systems maintained by people and powers. The Daughter witnessed this; she saw it with her own eyes, and the horrors of how her mother was murdered are burned into her retinas. She chooses to honest fight for justice and follows the steps of the rule of law. After years of fighting for a fair trial and justice, she is exhausted. Her anger and sadness radicalize her in the capitalist world.

Based on Silvia Federici's work, El Kharraz Alami once again demonstrates how she translates essayistic work into action, finding ways to make tangible the role of marginalized women in our societies. She demonstrates how this leads to alienation and social inequality and how the struggle for radical equality determines your position in society.

The history of Europe before the Conquest is sufficient proof that the Europeans did not have to cross the oceans to find the will to exterminate those standing in their way.
Silvia Federici

 

CREDITS

Concept, text, and direction by Khadija El Kharraz Alami*
 Performance by Dahlia Pessemiers Benamar, Lois Lumonga Brochez, Ashley Ho Yuhan, Khadija El Kharraz Alami
 Performer in research and creation Yasmine Yahiatene
Dramaturgy by Samah Hijawi
 Outside eye and movement coach Cherish Menzo
Scenography Dakota Magdalena Mokhammad
 Costumes Leila El Alaoui
 Music Reda Senhaji (Cheb Runner)
 Lighting designLuc Schaltin
Sound engineering Arthur De Vuyst
 Assistant director Emma Verstraete
 Production manager Lena Meijer
 Business manager Juul Spoor
Image illustration by Dakota Magdalena Mokhammad
 Image design by Lejla Vala Verheus
 Image photography by Studio Pramudiya
Production by Productiehuis Ouroboros, Kaaitheater, and Stichting K.E.K.A.
Co-production De Singel, De Brakke Grond, SPRING Festival,Kunstenwerkplaatsvzw, BUDA Arts Center
Special thanks to Isabelle Houdtzagers
This production was made possible with support from the Flemish Government and the Tax Shelter measure of the Belgian federal government and BeSide Tax Shelter

* Text adapted from the essays by Silvia Federici
Photos by Studio Pramudiya

FUTURE PERFORMANCES

May 17, 2026 SPRING Stadsschouwburg Utrecht Dutch premiere
November 4, 2026 Theater Rotterdam
December 2–3, 2026 De Brakke Grond Amsterdam
December 17–18, 2026 KVS Brussels
January 27, 2027 Het Nationale Theater The Hague

PAST PERFORMANCES

March 13–14, 2026, De Singel, Antwerp, Belgium: Premiere

 

Shrine
Shrine
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Ajjit

For the sake of our mothers' mothers' mothers' mothers' sacrifices & for the love of God, AJJIT, let it go.

Khadija's performative research performance AJJIT is a prologue to her new creation SHRINE, which will premiere in 2026. Khadija and Reda come from different disciplines and share their rich and complex cultural identity and their love for it. For them, this is expressed in the polyrhythm that can be heard in various North African music genres, among others. In her research into the revival of pre-capitalist bodies, she and Reda delve into the different music genres in Morocco. From Ahwach to Gnaoua, Ghaita, Chaabi, and Issawa, they search for stories, rhythms, and movements that celebrate their complexity. In AJJIT, Khadija and Reda shed light on the importance of coming together, commemorating, moving, music, and the power of expressing emotions and sharing them. An invitation to collectively reanimate our pre-capitalist bodies and to reflect on and commemorate the lives that have been lost. Showing the beauty of carrying a complex identity in many dimensions and inviting it to be, is an attempt and a desire to make complexity tangible and to honor it.

What else can the performing arts do, in the current collapse of democracy, empires, and capitalism, beyond reflecting the times we live in? Can the act and notion of togetherness during a performance contribute to actively speculating on and reshaping the human body (the body as mass) in our collapsing societies?

CREDITS

Concept Khadija El Kharraz Alami
Music and performance Reda Senhaji (Cheb Runner) and Khadija El Kharraz Alami
Costumes Leila El Alaoui
Lighting design Axel Dikkers
Poster image Salahedinne EL Bouaaichi
Image design Meryem Fekhari
Production management Lena Meijer
Production Stichting K.E.K.A.
Co-production De Singel, Theater Rotterdam, KWP
With thanks to De Brakke Grond, Yasmine Yahiatene, Victor Dumont, Désirée Cerocien, Ashley Ho Yuhan, Khadija El Warzaziya & Bnat Houariyat, Majmou3at Oulad El Aouni Driss, Souha Abou Taha, Boujemaa Alahmed, Abdellah M. Hassak, Kamal Laftimi, Rahma Amhaouch & family
With the support of: Amarte Fund Foundation and Norma Fund
Photos Studio Pramudiya and Houcem Bellakoud

 

FUTURE PERFORMANCES

April 18, 2026 Motel Mozaïque Rotterdam
June 12, 2026 Almost Summer Festival Kortrijk
More dates coming soon

PAST PERFORMANCES

September 19-20, 2025 Dear Antwerp De Singel Antwerp BE premiere
September 26-27, 2025 Feeling Curious Theater Rotterdam NL premiere
October 22-23, 2025 ADE De Brakke Grond Bar Benelux Amsterdam
November 1, 2025 Gnawa Festival Het Nationale Theater

Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
Ajjit
ENSEMBLE PIECE

ENSEMBLE PIECE, EXHUME BURIED CRIES, BEAUTY LOVE, REANIMATE THE DEAD

 

ENSEMBLE PIECE EXHUME BURIED CRIES is a myth about a people, *el Hayawan, *el Ghoul, *Shjema T’wila, who follow their own rhythm, do not fully identify with any one idea or culture, nor do they strongly oppose the familiar. They exist and move in a parallel world with us. They are uncertain about the things in our world, but they are certain about the things in their dimensions and are happy to share them with our world. They move simultaneously in the past, present, future, and imagination.

BEAUTY LOVE

For this creation, El Kharraz Alami spends a lot of time in the environments where her ancestors lived and moved. She immerses herself in dance, song, music, customs, scarcity, sharing, rituals, and traditions to awaken sides of herself that she would otherwise no longer encounter and might lose.

REANIMATE THE DEAD

What has been forcibly buried and remains undiscovered, denied the space to develop freely? How does it sound, look, move, and what does it tell us when we bring it back to life?

*el Hayawan creatures *el Ghoul "evil" spirit *Shjema T'wila tall trees

CREDITS

concept and direction Khadija El Kharraz Alami
performance Lois Lumonga Brochez, Khadija Massaoudi, and Khadija El Kharraz Alami
assistant director Nouha Rannoun
dramaturgy Kopano Maroga and Esther Severi
lighting design Luc Schaltin
music Michelle Samba
sound Peter Zwart
technology Dewi Mik
costumes and scenography Khadija El Kharraz Alami
production management Lena Meijer
promotional image and visual scenography Hussein Shikha
video Julie De Clercq
camera research Souha Abou Taha
film editing Noria Chaal
production K.E.K.A. Foundation and Kunstenwerkplaats
co-production De Singel, Ghent, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond & Riksteatern
with the support of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission, Fonds Podiumkunsten, and Fonds21
Photos Studio Pramudiya

PAST PERFORMANCES

September 15-16, 2023 De Singel Antwerp BE premiere
December 15-16, 2023 Kaaitheater Brussels
January 12-13, 2024 Theater Rotterdam NL premiere
January 20, 2024 NTGent
February 14, 2024 Het Nationale Theater The Hague
February 21-22, 2024 De Brakke Grond Amsterdam

ENSEMBLE PIECE
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ENSEMBLE PIECE
The Waves

For her performance The Waves, Khadija El Kharraz Alami draws not only on Virginia Woolf's book of the same name, but also on essays by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Audre Lorde, Simon(e) van Saarloos, and others.

The Wavesbecomes a ritual, a manifesto, an immersive experience in which female beauty, vulnerability, and pain take center stage. Together with four young actresses, El Kharraz Alami explores how deeply internalized experiences of oppression and abuse of power can be transformed into creative energy. From a feminine energy, a physical space is created in which we look trauma in the eye in order to ultimately bury it and leave it behind us. Expect an urgent and uncompromising theater experience.

 

CREDITS
Concept and direction Khadija El Kharraz Alami 
Game Lois Brochez, Isabelle Houdtzagers, Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Musia Mwankumi, Merel Severs 
Dramaturgy Kopano Maroga 
Lighting design and technology Luc Schaltin 
Composer Michelle Samba
Sound design Ata Güner
Set design and costumes Rachid Laachir 
Choreographic advice Cherish Menzo
Production management and assistant director Lena Meijer
Technical assistance Jurgen Fonteijn
Thanks to Aymará Parola, Eurudike de Beul
Production K.E.K.A. Foundation Arts Workshop Piano Factory
Co-production Production house Theater Rotterdam, Kaaitheater, de Brakke Grond, NTGent, De Singel
Made possibleby the Performing Arts Fund International Co-production Scheme, Flemish Community, Flemish Community Commission, EU Creative Europe project – Create To Connect
Photos Studio Pramudiya
PAST PERFORMANCES
April 23-24, 2022 De Singel Antwerp,Belgium premiere
May 13-14, 2022 SPRING UtrechtNL premiere
June 3, 2022 The National Theater The Hague
June 7-8, 2022 Kaaitheater Brussels
June 22-24, 2022 Theater Rotterdam
September 30 – October 1, 2022 De Brakke Grond Amsterdam
November 9-10, 2022 NTGent
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
The Waves
Reclaiming Space

For each edition of Re-claiming Space, Khadija El Kharraz Alami invites a different guest onto the stage. It could be a performer, an artist, an actor, a writer, a person, a dancer... The audience witnesses their first encounter. Re-claiming Space is an exploration of the space of womanhood and how to transcend it.

In her performance, Khadija El Kharraz Alami explores feminine beauty, vulnerability, unheard voices, the physical, and underrepresented female perspectives; "re-claiming space by sharing space." Her research is inspired by, among other things, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde. In her work process, she does not want to determine everything in advance, but rather allow the performance to emerge in the moment.

CREDITS

concept and performance Khadija El Kharraz Alami
costume design and poster design Rosa Schützendorf
video Julie De Clercq
costume designer Anna Luka da Silva
dramaturgical advice Esther Severi
production Kunstenwerkplaats de Pianofabriek
co-production Kaaitheater, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, NtGent, Frascati Theater
with thanks to the Dutch Embassy

PAST PERFORMANCES

September 21, 2021 De Singel Antwerp BE premiere
September 26, 2021 Theater Rotterdam NL premiere
September 27-28, 2021 De Brakke Grond Amsterdam
October 20, 2021 NTGent

Reclaiming Space
Reclaiming Space
Now I am Medea

In this performance, Khadija El Kharraz Alami intertwines the different perspectives in Euripides' Medea with her own story about growing up between two worlds, the differences in frameworks, and the clash of forces within yourself. Growing up with two worlds, and therefore many perspectives, is a true treasure. In Now I Am Medea, you see how the character enjoys both the world outside and inside her upbringing. The many traditions, the differences in culture, speaking multiple languages, believing or not believing, the music, the food, the freedom; everything has a major influence on her being. Until these riches begin to clash. Khadija stands between them and tries with all her might to hold on to both worlds and all perspectives. She continues to grow. No longer with, but between those two worlds. The stranger, the other, the lonely kind has grown up.

CREDITS

Concept and performance Khadija El Kharraz Alami
Lighting design Axel Dikkers
Costume design Erik Bosman
Set design John Thijssen
Production Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam

Premiere Netherlands 2018

Tour of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden 2023

Now I am Medea
Now I am Medea
Now I am Medea
Now I am Medea
Now I am Medea
  • NL