Essaouira welcomes young Gnaoua talent.

Amongst the main attractions are concerts at Moulay Hassan and Dar Souiri with 16 Gnaoua groups and it will be an occasion to rediscover theseyoung talents who are at the dawn of their career and are beginning to assert their experience and maturity.

There will also be a dozen fusion groups from the new Moroccan scene who will give a series of concerts at Moulay Hassan including the groups Kif Samba,Ganga fusion, Bleu Mogador, Moroc'n time, Ganga Vibes, Mazagan and Ribab Fusion.

The Spanish group Bella Nuei whose work concentrates on the common cultural heritage of the two sides of thge Mediterranean will also be performing. The aritistes Oum, Hicham Bajjou, Foulane Bouheine, Khalid Berkaoui will be there as well as the grand Gnaoua masters whose reputation is well known, including Mahmoud Guinea, Abdessalam Alikane, Said Bourki and Omar Hayat.

There is a parrallel exhibition "Memoarts" which will be at the Borj Bab Gallery in Marrakech. It will present texts, photographs and objects to render homage to the original gnaoua masters of several regions in Morocco which have now disappeared. Another photographic exhibition is scheduled at Dar Souiri by the office of the Organising Association for Essaouira Mogador . It will act as a retrospective
of previous festivals with photos of Hervé Bais, Youssef Amchir and Sabir.

Dar Souiri and Borj Bab Marrakech will show a dozen documentary and fictional films of the ritual of trance chosen by the director Ali Es safi. Some of these films use the revolutionary language of contemporary cinema, including amongst others the work of Maya Deren on haitian voodoo in the 1940's which have given birth to experimental cinema in the USA and the work of Jean Rouch with his"master's focus" and his films on the ritual of "Segui" which have strongly influenced the new wave cinema of France and elsewhere.

A series of workshops and training sessions by professionals ( percussion, audiovisuel) will also be open to young artistes . The budget is around a million dirhams provided by the town of Essaouira with some sponsors and the Essouira Mogador Association, which has secured 25% of the financing for the event.

Translated from an article by Nadia Belkhayat of l'Economiste.