About Majlis

What does Majlis mean?

Majlis is an Arabic word (مَجْلِس) that could be translated as “council” or “meeting”. But that’s not all there is behind it.

Morphologically speaking, the word comes from the root “ج ل س” (from right to left: j-l-s), which is connected to “sitting”. So the first literal translation would be “a place/time of sitting”. It is a gathering of people who sit together.

If we want to dig deeper into the Arabic culture and its traditional societies though, the majlis represent an important social institution: guests and traveller were welcomed inside the majlis to drink coffee or tea, socialise, tell stories, or simply spend time together. Just imagine that in the Gulf region especially, majlis is the actual name of a room in the house in which you’d welcome your guests.

As I was creating the face of this event, I wanted it to become a place in which people from every country feel welcomed. I want it to be a safe space, a gathering for us dancers who travel the world in order to meet new people, create new connections, and learn about this beautiful art form that unites us.

Majlis was not born out of the blue: it was born out of my passion for teaching, the love I’ve experienced in the dance community for 15 years now, the effort I put into organising much smaller events in the last 3 years, and my desire to bring like-minded people together in Berlin at least once a year.

Awareness about dance events

Dance events provide incredible opportunities to learn from teachers from across the globe, to reconnect with and meet friends, and of course to network. The hidden costs of hosting might not perhaps be immediately apparent to an event participant which is why I’d like to offer some thoughts here to explain how event prices are accumulated and what the unpaid labour might be for hosts who will never be fully compensated for all the hours spent working behind the scenes of an event. 

I have accrued some experience in this area, having organised sizeable dance events over my first few years living in Berlin leading to more recent opportunities to work on events (eitherby hosting personally or co-organising), and I’ve had the honour and pleasure of being hosted as a teacher at international events. I understand the perspectives of both host and participant who clearly have expectations of what an event should provide for fees paid and what those costs should cover. This topic hits especially hard after the inflation that has hit everyone to varying degrees since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, meaning things have become increasing difficult financially for many of us. So, my question is, how do we keep things fair for both host and participant who want to keep dancing, teaching, and most of all learningwhen there are so many hidden costs involved and how do we make sure everyone is fairly compensated?

That is why I believe it’s extremely important for me to initiate a discussion about this topicand be transparent about my opinion: dance events are expensive. But why are they?

As participants, we mostly see a great lineup of teachers we can learn from and often an opportunity to perform, but there’s so much more to an event from the host’s perspective.

Websites, graphic design, prints, merch, photography, videography and editing, the travel costs to and from venues let alone the teacher’s and studio fees can begin to resemble an online Temu shopping cart. What begins as relatively insignificant amounts here and there can suddenly calculate to something quite alarming that you never quite expected to pay for personally either financially or in time and skill. The price of a festival doesn’t even come close to covering the hours of work required to create it. Many hosts let these unseen hours go unpaid because we are passionate about providing a wonderful place for the community where we can learn and meet like-minded people at an affordable price.

That being said, there are things that must be paid for: hosting a teacher means covering travel expenses, food (including accommodating dietary requirements), accommodation, sometimes a performance fee in addition to an hourly fee for teaching and a studio that is clean, safe and large enough for the purpose. Not covering these expenses is non-negotiable for me: teachers are professionals who do this for a living, who keep taking classes to always be up to date, and who keep creating to deliver the best experience possible.

As a full-time dancer, I strongly believe we need to respect the years and money invested in training by the teachers we love so much which results in the experience that we benefit from as attendees. And, as artists ourselves, we shouldn’t accept giving them any less than what they deserve. Taking the time to travel across the globe to teach at a dance event is a job, and teachers should be paid fairly without being subjected to a monetary loss. Exposure doesn’t pay bills.

The goal of Majlis for this initial and any future editions that will take place is simple: to create a comfortable and thriving environment for the participants, and to offer fair conditions to the teachers who will not have to pay in order to be able to teach. It’s a conversation that I feel needs to be had, so that hosts can continue to use their passion and love for the dance to keep offering events globally without operating at a financial loss.

To conclude, there are many contributing factors that go into making an event happen such as the use of skills and administration involved in creating an event. I propose we have an honest conversation about the unpaid labour involved in event planning and execution and keep prices affordable but fair both for attendees and teachers.

Thank you so much Julia Stoiber for helping me put my thoughts into words.