2025 - 2026 FACTORY student led: In search of (Om) Saadia
APRIL 20, 2026
Led by Olfa Arfaoui and Giuliana Beya Dridi
When: 20:30 - 22:00
Location: TBA
Yā ḥannāna, rāni wuld Ifriqiyya
Yā Saadia, winik?
Yā Sidi Marzoug, iftah el-bāb lil-dhikra
Most people in Tunisia and across North Africa have heard of Bou Saadia, a mystical figure associated with Stambali, the traditional Tunisian trance-dance music linked to possession and healing. These musical rituals and spiritual traditions were brought to North Africa through the trans-Saharan slave trade between the 17th and 19th centuries. Bou Saadia is often described as a mythical Sub-Saharan African man who lost his daughter during forced human trafficking. According to oral narratives, he wore a mask because of his Blackness and wandered through the streets in search of his daughter.
Together, we will dive into the story of Saadia, the father, the mother, and all the hidden and unvoiced histories of African communities. By constructing and deconstructing the dominant narrative to make space for women’s stories and perspectives. We will watch short films, listen to traditional Stambali sounds, and write fictional poetry and fragments of stories through the voice and gaze of Saadia, the daughter, the mother and the forgotten ones.
The figure of Bousadia
A central figure in many Stambeli performances is Bou Sa’adia, a character who embodies both historical trauma and spiritual presence within Afro-Tunisian ritual culture. Oral narratives recount that Bou Sa’adia was a sub-Saharan African man whose daughter, Sa’adia, was abducted by slave traders and sold in Tunis. In his sorrow, he wandered the city streets, playing the shqashiq (metal clappers) and singing in an unfamiliar language, hoping to find her among the children. Over time, Bou Sa’adia became an enduring presence in the Stambeli tradition, representing paternal grief, displacement, and the search for restoration. Bou Sa’adia is “at once a mythical and historical figure, fraught with competing interpretations,” often portrayed as a mysterious, strangely dressed Black foreigner who simultaneously frightens and fascinates
His ritual appearance is emotionally charged, marked by dance, spontaneous interaction with the audience, and often provoking strong collective responses. Beyond folklore, Bou Sa’adia acts as a spiritual mediator and symbolic mourner, anchoring Stambeli in the lived history of Tunisia’s slave past and the enduring marginalization of Afro-Tunisian communities. His figure is also connected to broader networks of Black spiritual healing in Tunisia. In the south, for example, the equivalent of Stambeli is known as El Banga, which retains many of the same trance-musical elements and spirit-possession logics.
These traditions involve the use of trance-inducing music to facilitate the exorcism of harmful spirits and the healing of psychological or spiritual ailments. Practitioners guide patients through a process of depossession and purification, aligning the ritual functions of El Bouri with those of Stambeli and Banga. Together, these interconnected traditions reflect a layered Afro-Tunisian spiritual heritage, where ritual performance, historical memory, and therapeutic goals converge in the collective management of suffering, identity, and ancestral presence.