Saanta Collective’s ‘GAAF’ blends traditional and modern Somali dance storytelling
They were working through a performance that reconstructs a Gaaf, the Somali wedding afterparty where guests answer dares or challenges from a “soldier,” usually a relative who takes on the role.
by Zach LebowitzThursday May 28, 2026
What begins as a rehearsal in a Minneapolis art space quickly opens into something larger: a celebration of Somali tradition, a meditation on diaspora, and a performance built to feel like a wedding afterparty brought to life. Nadira Hussein and Maryan Yusuf’s new work reimagines a Gaaf — the customary Somali celebration that follows a wedding — blending music, dance, cultural references, audience participation and newly invented twists.
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Members of the Saanta Collective perforn at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis on May 23, 2026. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
Inside a brick Minneapolis building marked by a mural of hijabi mermaids, the Soomaal House of Art serves as a home base for Somali creatives in Minnesota. The space, created to support artists from the community, recently hosted a rehearsal for a performance unlike anything its organizers had staged before.
Nadira Hussein sat with a cast made up of siblings and friends on benches in the venue’s white, pared-down showroom. Two office chairs stood in front of them. Behind the group, an entryway led to a small green room filled with wardrobes and works still in progress.
They were working through a performance that reconstructs a Gaaf, the Somali wedding afterparty where guests answer dares or challenges from a “soldier,” usually a relative who takes on the role.
The live production will present a dramatized version of that tradition, with the challenges centered on dance, Hussein said. For her, the piece offers a chance to reclaim a practice that she and many members of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora have not experienced firsthand.
Hussein’s brother, Diin Hussein, stood before the group with a green plastic broom resting across his shoulders. He took on the role of the mock authority figure, teasing the cast as he announced, “We have someone in the crowd that decided to lie to the bride today,” drawing laughs from his friends. “Does anyone recognize this letter?” He pulled out a laminated note, prompting the performers to fake surprise. Some audience members laughed too. “Nah, I need my glasses,” one said.
Hussein pulled the group back into the script. “I think I saw the man who wrote it!” Diin continued. “…There was a man who wrote it! In fact, Khalid, your name is on the bottom!” The room filled with cheers and laughter.
After more lines from Khalid Dahir, a dancer in the cast, Nadwa Hussein, the stage manager, cued up music on her iPad and set in motion a dance rivalry between Dahir and the other performers.
Born in Minneapolis, Nadira said she values opportunities to engage with her culture, even as she recognizes how far her experience is from that of others in the Somali diaspora.
“If I was just born back home [in Somalia], things would be a lot simpler,” she said. “But then sometimes I do appreciate being able to see things from the perspective I’m in, and also grow up with the people I grew up with. What did Kamala Harris say? Something about the coconut and the tree?”
Members of the Saanta Collective perforn at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis on May 23, 2026. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
The traditional meets the contemporary
Nadira and her creative partner, Maryan Yusuf, are graduate students in heritage studies and public history at the University of Minnesota. They began collaborating in 2023.
Their current capstone project for their master’s degrees, “Ciyaaraha,” examines Somali dance in contemporary settings, both as public performance and as a catalyst for social gathering. As part of that work, they are developing “GAAF” for the University of Minnesota’s Department of Theater Arts and Dance.
Their partnership began with traditional dance workshops for the Somali Museum, followed by group and solo exhibitions at galleries including Soomaal.
Along the way, they met Abdimalik Ahmed, co-director of “Your Hello to My Goodbye,” which premiered at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival last August. Nadira said that production helped spark the creation of their artist collective, Saanta, by connecting them with other Somali creatives in Minnesota, including Sabrin Nur and Wasima Farah.
Each member of Saanta develops an individual body of work. Nadira and Yusuf have acted in and produced short films by other artists in the group, but “GAAF” marks the first project in which they are leading directors within the collective.
Nadwa, one of Nadira’s two sisters in the group, said “GAAF” is meant as an experimental dance work with scripted and narrative elements.
“If we call it a play, I feel like that’s not entirely accurate,” Nadwa said. “I’ve been comparing it to the Somali version of ballet, which I also don’t entirely want to do because I feel like Somali dance is so ‘itself’ that it shouldn’t need an equivalent.”
Nadira said the goal is to bring the audience into the experience, as though they are extended family at a wedding afterparty.
Nadwa has been designing the set with that in mind. Performers will share the same level as the audience instead of working from a raised stage. Guests will leave their shoes at the front door, as they would at a Somali wedding, and Nadwa is also working with the venue on details such as real candles and traditional art on the walls.
Cindy García, from the university’s Theater and Dance Department, mentored Nadira and Yusuf after they enrolled in her graduate course on the ethnography of performance. She also gave them access to develop the show at Minneapolis’ Barbara Barker Center for Dance.
Dances that tell stories
“GAAF” is structured around three main “judgments” delivered by Diin, the soldier, each one tied to relationships among characters that partly reflect the actors themselves.
The first judgment centers on a spinning dance called Jaandheer, performed by Nadira and her sister, Muna Hussein, and set off by an argument over a stolen sambusa.
The second features a dance called Saylici and follows Dahir as he is pushed to admit he has feelings for another guest after accidentally dropping a note he was too nervous to hand over.
The third turns more confrontational, with a heckler challenging another character to prove his place in the family. That challenge unfolds through dance, specifically a Harimaade, a traditional war song and dance from northern Somali culture.
Nadwa said the production stands out because it uses Somali dance forms as part of a storyline rather than only as ceremonial display.
Members of the Saanta Collective perforn at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis on May 23, 2026. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
“I think it’s actually really cool to see a [Somali] dance be so narrative-heavy, because typically it’s not like that,” she said. “Most of the time traditional dance really relies on just the vibes and the feelings of the song.”
Beyond the other dances threaded throughout the show, the piece also carries a larger conceit: the entire performance is the dream of dancer Bahsan Mohamed, who falls asleep at the beginning and “wakes up” when it ends. Yusuf said that frame speaks to the longing many Somali-Americans feel to connect with a culture they know mainly through inheritance and memory.
“You dream of this experience that you’ve never had, or that you crave, which is, unfortunately, the running theme of the diaspora,” Yusuf said.
Yusuf’s family moved from Somalia to San Diego, Calif., when she was 4.
“We have our traditional weddings and our other ceremonies that we’ve adapted into our lives as us Somali immigrants here, but [Gaaf] was not one of them,” she said.
Bahsan said her childhood included plenty of Somali cultural life at home and in local mosques. She ate Somali food, was not allowed to speak English at home until later in her childhood, and remembers watching or hearing Somali Riwaayad performances on YouTube and on old CDs her aunts brought from Somalia. Among them were well-known works such as “Qabyo,” by Somali playwright Maxmuud Sangub.
Riwaayad, the Somali word for drama or performance, is one of the main theater forms in Somalia. Shows are performed before standing microphones and depend heavily on audience participation. Viewers are expected to call out, respond and even request an encore of a song or dance while the performance is underway, and actors often oblige.
Riwaayads typically do not rely on fully written scripts. Instead, they lean on improvisation and a director’s notes on key moments, a method that has become central to how “GAAF” is being built.
“We can add humor, we can improvise, and that’s totally OK,” Yusuf said.
According to Somali language researcher B.W. Andrzejewski, most Somali performances and dramatic literature were never formally written down.
Yusuf said a major part of her and Nadira’s research is to digitally archive events such as “GAAF,” while also making Somali literature more accessible. “There are greats like Sangub, and some of his stuff was filmed, but the rest of it, you had to be there,” Yusuf said.
Riwaayad is a dominant form of theater in Somalia. Its narratives are performed in front of standing microphones, with an emphasis on audience participation. Above, members of the Saanta Collective perforn at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis on May 23, 2026. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
A new generation of creators
During one brainstorming session, the group crowded around Nadwa’s phone and watched a scene from “Bridgerton” in which Hyacinth, played by Florence Hunt, dances to a string quartet version of Charli XCX’s “360.” The conversation quickly turned to how the same kind of energy might work in Seylici, the second dance in the show — “but make it Somali!” Yusuf said, drawing cheers from the group.
Unlike British pantomime or Greek tragedy, Riwaayad traditionally avoids unreality, supernatural figures and even fantasy wardrobe choices such as masks. Its stories often function as moral lessons drawn from everyday Somali life.
But Yusuf, who describes herself as a fantasy writer, said “GAAF” deliberately introduces a dream framework and surreal lighting to create a more otherworldly mood.
Yusuf said that when she was developing workshops for the Somali Museum, its directors favored traditional Somali authorship over less familiar creative choices.
That experience pushed Nadira and Yusuf to seek other spaces for work that reflects the realities of Somali life in America.
Yusuf said Kaamil Haider, the director at Soomaal House, gave Somali artists room to experiment without needing to package their work in a familiar image of tradition.
“I would like for an access point for creatives that are Somali [to] experiment as they please,” Yusuf said. “Not to meet any expectation of what it means to be Somali, to be able to create fully, and to have people who nurture that, or [are] accepting with that, who will take their idea and make it into something that can come alive.”
Members of the Saanta Collective perforn at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance in Minneapolis on May 23, 2026. Credit: Chris Juhn for Sahan Journal
