Next: about 25 to 27 Jun 2027
Gnawa and World Music Festival, Essaouira
A June festival in a Moroccan port town that brings the Gnawa, descendants of enslaved West Africans, to a wide audience.
About Gnawa and World Music Festival, Essaouira
The Gnawa are a Moroccan brotherhood whose masters (maalems) play the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute, and lead night-long healing ceremonies called lila, in which participants, in colours assigned to different spirits (mluk), enter trance in the belief that the spirits are being appeased. The festival in Essaouira, held in June, turns that tradition into public concerts and invites musicians from jazz and world traditions to collaborate, and draws hundreds of thousands. The lila is itself a private rite held in homes and shrines, and the festival's public stage is not the same thing. Some Gnawa welcome the attention and income, while others worry about the loss of the ritual's meaning. The date is announced each year, so the days here are a guide.
Also part of it, and being written: Gnawa (The brotherhood and its ceremonies.), Gnawa and World Music Festival (The Essaouira festival.), Sintir (The bass lute at the centre of the music.).
Written by the EveryJaadu desk with AI assistance. Background: "Gnawa and World Music Festival" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family, and are described as belief and practice. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.