The Fez sacred music festival, scheduled from May 12 to 20, 2017, will launch the Kingdom’s festival season. During this 23rd edition, “water and the sacred” will invite you on a journey to explore the symbolism of water, and will urge the world to reconcile with the environment, and to mobilize for the future of the planet. “Anything but trivial, the choice of the theme responds to the need to raise awareness among as many people as possible about ecological issues, on which the very fate of humanity depends,” confides Abderrafie Zouiten, president of the Esprit de Fès Foundation, initiator of the festival. Clearly, the Fez festival is intended to be a continuation and a cultural contribution to COP22.
Indeed, the Foundation team will travel to the French Senate on April 10 to lift the veil on the new version of its flagship event. “Water, a symbol of purification in the universal sacred and in mystical poetry, is in itself an invitation to respect our nourishing earth,” believes the president of the festival. And added: “we must remember the very history of Fez, the first capital of Morocco.” As a reminder, the location of the city was chosen by Moulay Idriss and his companion Ameir for the abundance of its sources. Built by the Maallem builders, the medina is home to a hydraulic system that is fascinating due to its ingenuity, the most visible face of which the resident or traveler can observe.
On the program side, the new edition will open with a creation entitled “From the source to the ocean”, inspired by verse 30 of Surah 21 of the Holy Koran (We have made water every living thing). “This show will take both an ecological and spiritual look at water as a source of life. It will summarize thousands of tales and legends relating to water, shelter of fairies and nymphs, place of magical powers linked to the forces of nature, benefic or evil,” explains Alain Weber, director of the show, also artistic director of the festival. This opening creation will explore the world of water with an ecological and spiritual intention.
It will evoke in turn the fountains of Fez, the Amazon, emblem of the primary forest, the language of the Amazigh whistlers of the High Atlas and the Canaries, Noah’s Ark and the flood, or even the desert oasis celebrated in Sufi poetry. Weber promises a spectacle rich in color.
Throughout the shows, festival-goers will be invited to the flamenca symphony Poeta by the great guitarist Vicente Amigo, the Peking opera, and the Lebanese diva Majda Roumi, or even artists from the islands of Japan, Sardinia or Crete.
Moreover, in collaboration with the French Institute of Fez and for the particular attention of school children, an Upper Egyptian café will be staged with Saïdi music, dance and magic, with the screening of a film starring the child musicians of the Nile. Note, finally, that the Fez forum will be led this year by Driss Khrouz, the former director of the national library of Rabat. The cultural meeting will bring together eminent experts around the question of “sacred water”. This is where the real strength of the Fez festival lies: participating in transmission through time. In a word “know where we come from to know where we are going”, because a society deprived of knowledge of its past sees its foundations undermined”, summarizes Abderrafie Zouiten. For this edition, the guest of honor will be China.
source: leconomiste
