Association Sidi Mimoun

The Gnawa of Morocco are the descendants of the black slaves deported from the countries of subsaharian west Africa (Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Guinea). In Morocco their ancestral practices have been influenced by the tasawwuf (sufism, islamic esoterism), giving a tariqa (brotherhood, mystical path) that has like patron the marabut Sidi Bilal, Friend of the Prophet and first muezzin of the Islam.

Musicians and dancers, the Gnawa perform a complex liturgy (lila, derdeba), that re-create the first sacrifice and the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine demiurgic activity, the seven mluk, represented by seven colors, as a prismatic decomposition of the original light/energy.

The mluk are evoked by seven musical patterns, seven melodic and rhythmic cells (um), who -repeated and varied - set up the seven suites that form the repertoire of dance and music of the Gnawa ritual. During these seven suites, are burned seven different types of incense and the dancers are covered by veils of seven different colours.

Each one of the seven mluk is accompanied by many "personages", identifiables by the music and by the footsteps of the dance: these entities, treated like "presences" (hadrat) that the consciousness meets in the ecstatic space/time (hal), are related with mental complexes, human characters and behaviors. The aim of the ritual is to reintegrate and to balance the main powers of the human body, made by the same energy that supports the perceptible phenomenons and the divine creative activity.

Inside the brotherhood, each group (zriba) gets together with a moqadma, the priestess that leads the ecstatic dance (jedba), and with a ma`allem, the master of the ganbri (lute-drum), who is accompanied by several players of qraqeb (iron castanets).

Preceded by an animal sacrifice, that assures the maintenance of the presents, the night-ritual starts with the opening and the consecration of the space, the `aada ( "habit," traditional form), when the Gnawa musicians perform a swirling acrobatic dance, playing the qraqeb and double-skin big drums (tbola).

Later, the ganbri opens the treq (path), the strictly encoded sequence of the ritual repertoire of music, dances, colors and incenses, that guide in the ecstatic trip across the realms of the seven mluk, until the renaissance in the common world, at the first lights of dawn.

The Gnawa Sidi Mimoun of Casablanca, leaded by the prestigious m`aalem Sam (Mohammed Zourbat) and Amida (Ahmed Boussou), have played many times abroad, doing performances from the part of their repertoire that precedes the ritual phase. In some special occurence, they have celebrated the Lila, the ecstatic night ritual, for a not-initiate attendance.

Performance - time: two hours with break, one hour and half without break – is based on the preliminary parts of the Lila ritual. At the beginning the songs and the dances, with the accompaniment of the lute-drum ganbri and hands-clapping, evoke the ancestors from Sudan (the fisherman, the hunter, the warrior), the ethnic origin of the moroccan Gnawa (Bambara, Haoussa, Peuls), the animals and the spirits of the forest and of the savanna.

In the second part the Gnawa, with the ganbri and the iron castanets qraqeb play the Neghsha, the ceremonial ouverture of the Lila, that communicates the effervescence by rhythm and dance.

The performance ends with the drumming-dance of the ‘Aada, that represents the genesis of the universe and opens the space to the Gnawa spirits arrival.

The performance "Music and dance of the Gnawa from Morocco", played by Gnawa Sidi Mimoun of Casablanca, have been presented in many theatres and places, since 1991: Opéra Garnier and Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris); Folk Studio and Festival di Villa Ada (Roma); Le Notti di San Lorenzo (Milano); Suoni dal Mondo (Bologna) and Musica dei Popoli (Firenze).

Technical requirements: stage m.6 x 8 (minimum) with pillows and carpets; 6/8 panoramic microphones suspended or 5 microphones type Shure SM 58 (in alternative 5 "tie"-microphones Senheiser HF); 4/6 monitors; sound-check and lights 2 hours before the show; catering in the dressing-room.

The whole ritual of the Gnawa – time: 5/ 6 hours – for a limited number (200/ 250) of participants.