MOROCCO: The famous Gnawa music festival kicks off in the Moroccan coastal city of Essaouira drawing fewer numbers than previous years

Record ID: 824353

  • Title: MOROCCO: The famous Gnawa music festival kicks off in the Moroccan coastal city of Essaouira drawing fewer numbers than previous years
  • Date: 28th June 2011
  • Summary: AUDIENCE LISTENING AND DANCING
  • Embargoed: 13th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Morocco, Morocco
  • Country: Morocco
  • Topics: Arts
  • Reuters ID: LVA969TB5LENWZXMXF1XO115UA1L
  • Story Text: The fourteenth annual Gnawa music festival held in the picturesque port city of Essaouira has drawn fewer numbers than previous years.
    The traditional music event ran from Thursday to Sunday (June 23-26) in the town of 70,000 inhabitants.
    Last year's event attracted a reported 400,000, but this year's turn out was much smaller.
    Festival goers cited many possible reasons for the decrease, including a clash with a nearby festival in Agadir, A-Level exams and poor timing as Morocco is in the grips of a referendum campaign for a new constitution.
    Others suggested the festival may have lost popularity after the February 20 Movement - a Moroccan youth group that led calls for nationwide protest to to push for constitutional reforms - criticised such large musical gatherings.
    "Fourteen years ago, when we created this festival, we were already engaged in a fight for values such as democracy, freedom, the exchange of ideas, as well as social justice, and we decided that access to all the shows in the festival will be free of charge. These values are today defended by the 20 February Movement but we did the same a long time ago," said Gnawa festival organiser Naela Tazi.
    One solid supporter of the Gnawa festival was former advisor to King Mohammed VI, Andre Azoulay, who said: "This festival is a privileged meeting point for some of the most cherished values that are disappearing more and more in other places. This festival is about serenity, aspiring for a better future and for more reforms and more freedom. At the same time, it is a sign of the deep roots on which Morocco is built."
    The festival is a celebration of traditional Gnawa music, characterised by musicians in tasselled hats, who spin wildly as the music plays.
    "Being a Gnawi is about soul. A person's actions in this world are repeated. Everything stems from the heart and from its existence. You cannot learn how to be a Gnawi because it is intertwined in the soul and spirit," said band leader Hamid el-Kasri.
    Morocco's King Mohammed VI is at the helm of the Arab world's longest-running dynasty.
    He has taken a step towards a democratic transition with a constitutional reform plan he wants voters to approve in a July 1 referendum.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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