World City Guide

Culture

Music is at the heart of cultural life in Marrakech, as it is throughout the whole of Morocco. In this city, as in the country, distinctions between public and private performance are practically non-existent, as many of the best performers are often to be found playing to all who want to listen at Jemaa-el-Fna.

More formal cultural events take the form of festivals – as there is very little by way of dedicated theatre, opera or dance venues, although there are some Arabic performances in small theatres for those who wish to seek them out. Performances combining music, dance and theatre are extremely popular during the National Festival of Popular Arts (see Cultural Events below). Many posters around Marrakech advertise forthcoming comedy events, although performances are in French or Arabic only.

Music: Anyone with even a passing interest in music should head straight for Jemaa-el-Fna. The best time to go for music is in the mid- to late evening, as the square gradually empties and the dedicated street musicians take over, playing their repetitive, rhythmic melodies on a mixture of mandolins, guitars, flutes, drums and makeshift violins. The most enchanting of the styles on offer is Gnawa trance music, best exemplified by the internationally renowned band Nass Marrakech, which formed in the city. This music, a blend of African styles, combines repetitive rhythms and choric voices to create a trance-like awareness of the present moment in the listener.

Marrakech is almost certainly the best place to enjoy the fusion of Moroccan music, as the city has been the host to Andalucian, Arab, Berber and African influences for up to ten centuries. For North African music lovers, one particularly good time to visit Marrakech is in June, during the two weeks of the National Festival of Popular Arts (see Cultural Events below).

Film: Marrakech and the surrounding countryside has long drawn many leading film-makers in search of stunning set locations. Alfred Hitchcock shot The Man Who Knew Too Much here in the 1950s and, more recently, Martin Scorsese used the city to evoke the biblical Holy Land in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Gillies MacKinnon faithfully reproduced the Marrakech of Esther Freud’s novel Hideous Kinky in his 1999 film adaptation of the book.

As a city for watching movies, there are two venues in Guéliz worth bearing in mind: the Colisee (tel: (044) 448 893) on Boulevard Mohammed Zerktouni, which shows mainly American blockbusters, and the Institut Français, on Route de la Targa, Djebel Guéliz (tel: (044) 446 930), which shows mainly French-language films.

Cultural Events: The city’s main cultural event each year is without doubt the National Festival of Popular Arts, which takes place for two weeks every June. The festival mainly takes place amid the ruins of the El Badi Palace. Traditionally, the festival is a showcase for the arts and Moroccan folk culture, with performances of Moroccan dance, Berber music and interpretations of Moroccan plays. Groups of musicians and dancers gather in the city from all regions of Morocco to show off their skills. Artisans and craftspeople also use the event as a good excuse to head to town and take part in the festivities. Since 2000, European, Asian and American folk performers have also been invited to take part.

The festival also highlights the ‘Fantasia’, a uniquely Moroccan form of entertainment that was originally conceived as a military exercise but is now a tightly choreographed spectacle with charging horses, trick riding and wild dancing. Those who wish to see a Fantasia at other times should head for Chez Ali, Route de Casablanca (tel: (044) 448 187).

Literary Notes: Some of the most focused writing on Marrakech in the last century has been by foreign writers. The Voices of Marrakech (1978) by the Nobel-prize-winning author, Elias Canetti, is perhaps the best – a superb memoir of the city during the last years of French rule in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Esther Freud’s Hideous Kinky (1992), made into a film starring Kate Winslet, is the definitive fictional evocation of the impact of Marrakech on idealistic Westerners. Gavin Maxwell’s Lords of the Atlas (1966) tells the compelling story of the Glaoui family who ruled from Kasbah Telouet in the High Atlas Mountains. A Street in Marrakech (1988) by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea illustrates the trials of life inside the Marrakech medina through the eyes of an American couple who live in the city.

Among books by modern Moroccan writers, there are few specifically on Marrakech but one Moroccan novelist worth reading is El-Khouri Idriss, whose novels include Al-Bidayat (Beginnings) (1980), Al-’ayyam wa Allayali (Days and Nights) (1982) and Madinat Atturab (City of Dirt) (1988). These books convey strongly the feel of everyday Moroccan life in coffee shops and other urban settings and show a firm commitment to representing the voices of marginalised members of society.