Mickela Mallozzi

Pandemic lockdowns might be pervasive, but not all our movements are restricted. This has led to a rise in dance, as people seek fitness, stress relief, healing—and connection. Live classes on Instagram and YouTube have proliferated, headed by the likes of dance legend Debbie Allen and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Living rooms are becoming rave scenes thanks to live-streaming dance parties by celebrity spinners Diplo and D-Nice.

In season three of her Emmy Award–winning TV show “Bare Feet,” host and producer Mickela Mallozzi explores her roots—with a twist. It was my last full day in Morocco after a week of filming my TV show, Bare Feet, and I found myself and my film crew standing outside the metal gate of a simple, concrete home. Ouafea, my young guide, who had recently married into the Amazigh or Berber tribe, offered to bring me to Imouzer Kandar, a Berber village an hour outside of Fes and home to her in-laws.

My story begins like many professional jetsetters’ — my first time traveling overseas independently was when I studied abroad in college. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior years at NYU, and I was to spend six weeks at a villa in Florence, Italy, studying Renaissance Art History and Intensive Italian. Both my mother and father were born in Italy, emigrating with their own parents in the 1960s, so I grew up with a very strong Italian-American identity at home.