Coco Cabasa

Kaouthar Darmoni believes that her sister women need to embrace their primal feminine power. We are introduced to her while she gives her rousing and liberating belly dance lessons. She is a paragon of emancipation: confident, funny and expressive. Interviews and conversations with Darmoni and several key figures in her life reveal that she had to fight hard to get where she is today. This gender studies lecturer now living in Amsterdam travels with filmmaker Klara Til to Tunisia, where she was born, and to France, where she hoped she would find refuge and the chance to really fly. But she was horrified to discover that the women there were not as liberated as she expected. Emancipation seems to go hand-in-hand with the suppression of femininity, and that’s something Kaouthar simply refuses to do. Her taboo-breaking belly dance is inspired by memories of the sensuality of Tunisian women – although she felt oppressed by her father and society there, she obviously still loves Arabic culture.