Gnaoua Festival Berlin No2
Thursday 15.08.2019 | Club, Saal, Südstern
Admission: Masterclass: free | Parade: free | Concert: Advance sale 12 EUR, Box office 16 EUR / 12 EUR discount
Organizer: Werkstatt der Kulturen
Production
MASTERCLASS
MASTERCLASS with MAJID BEKKAS & ALY Keïta
15/082019 | 10am | Club
free event
Registration required for professional musicians only.
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After the 1st festival the event is already iconic, we present the Gnaoua Masterclass with Mâalem Majid Bekkas.
The gimbri and oud player Majid Bekkas, who received numerous awards, is one of the international stars of the Moroccan music scene and is known to a large audience in Germany because of his collaborations with Joachim Kühn and Klaus Doldinger. The trio of Majid Bekkas, Joachim Kühn and Ramón López have released five successful, award winning albums on the renowned Jazz label ACT. The GNAOUA FESTIVAL BERLIN would like to establish the Masterclass as a recurring feature for the benefit of the Berlin music scene. This year, the charismatic Majid Bekkas is setting new musical priorities as a coach. He is supported by his long-time collaborator Aly Keïta (Balafon), the star of sub-Saharan music in Berlin. Over a period of two days, both Mâalems - both masters - will collaborate on new songs in a music lab with professional musicians from Berlin. The result will be presented to the audience in this concert.
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PARADE
FESTIVAL OPENING WITH ALL GNAOUA MUSICIANS
15/08/2019 | 5pm | meeting point: Südstern
free event
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The parade starts at the Südstern, goes through the Hasenheide park and ends at the WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN. The traditional parade of Gnaoua musicians takes place in the Moroccan coastal town of Essaouira and attracts every year thousands of visitors from all over the world. The livery are a wealth of colours, the qraqebs - four-part metal castanets - set the Gnaoua rhythms, accompanied by singing, dancing and spectacular high leaps, the festival opener! |
CONCERT
ARAB SONG JAM GOES GNAOUA ALL STARS
15/08/2019 | 8pm | Auditorium
Advance sale 12 EUR, Box office 16 EUR / 12 EUR discount
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The »New York Times« described as fascinating the strikingly unusual diversity of the audience in Berlin when they visited the series ARAB SONG JAM, which has a regular slot at the WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN. This year, in 2019, it explores the transcultural complexity of the spaces »Maghreb« and »Mashreq«. »Cultural mapping« as an explorative search, in which a new musical focus is set for each concert. Alaa Zouiten, who is responsible for the programme of the GNAOUA FESTIVAL BERLIN as well as for a part of the ARAB SONG JAM series, offers audiences the first opportunity to experience extraordinary and meaningful music from the Gnaoua culture that is worth preserving. |
He has invited the Gnaoua »Punk« Simo Lagnawi from London, Hicham Bilali of the »Black Koyos« from Brussels, the musicians Rachid Lamouri, Habib Belk, Zakaria Izoubaz and Rabii Rezgoui of »Gnawa Deutschland«, and last but not least Alaa Zouiten himself will be playing.
line-up
- Simo Lagnawi - gimbri, qraqeb
- Hicham Bilali - gimbri, qraqeb, vocal
- Rachid Lamouri - qraqeb, vocal
- Habib Belk - gimbri, vocal
- Zakaria Izoubaz - qraqeb, vocal
- Rabii Rezgoui - qraqeb, vocal
- Alaa Zouiten - oud
GNAOUA FESTIVAL BERLIN No2
They came from West African countries now called Mauritania, Senegal, Niger and Mali, many of them from Western Sudan. For centuries, West Africans, often still children, were kidnapped, enslaved and deported by caravan trade routes to today's Maghreb states. In the 16th century, one of the largest centres of trans-Saharan human trafficking was in Morocco, about 150 kilometres from Marrakech.
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Today Essaouira is one of the most important cultural centres of Gnaoua. There are various assumptions about the origin of the term »Gnaoua«. It was probably derived from the Arabic »Guinea«, i.e. »black«. A derivation from the Berber akal n iguinaouen, »land of blacks«, is also possible. The »Gnaouis«, the black Moroccans, trace their cultural origins back to the Hausa from states such as today's Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger, the Peul, whose principalities stretched from Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Chad to Sudan, the Wolof culture in Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania, and above all to the Bambara and Songhai, whose empires concentrated around Niger and shaped the regions linguistically and culturally from the 15th to the 17th century. The Gnaouis blended the spiritual music of these very different West African cultures of origin with Sufi traditions and musical styles of the Jewish and Muslim Arabs and Amazigh North Africans. The outcome is a resilient, spiritual music and a curative practice, the Gnaoua culture, whose musical core is the driving rhythm of the metal »qraqeb«, the predecessor of the flamenco castanets. |
The UNESCO is considering including Gnaoua music in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2019.
The GNAOUA FESTIVAL BERLIN No2 is presented by
The Partners
Our special thanks to Jörg Grotjohann, Cultural Attaché of the German Embassy in Rabat, for his kind assistance.
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