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 that want to listen at Jemaa el Fna.
More formal cultural events take the form of festivals, although there are some performances of opera and dance in the open-air amphitheater of the
Théâtre Royal in Guéliz, 40 Boulevard Mohammed VI (tel: (024) 431 516). Performances combining music, dance
and theater are extremely popular during the
Festival of Popular Arts (see
Special Events). You may notice posters around Marrakech advertising forthcoming theater and 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 banjos, lutes, guitars, flutes, drums and makeshift violins. The most enchanting of the styles on offer is
Gnaoua trance music, best exemplified by the internationally-renowned band Nass Marrakech, which formed in the city. This music, a blend of African styles that derived from freed slaves’ songs, 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 10 centuries. For North African music lovers, one particularly good time to visit Marrakech is in June or early July, during the
Festival of Popular Arts or the third week of June, when the annual
Gnaoua Festival is held in Essaouira (see
Special Events).
Film: Marrakech and the surrounding countryside have 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
Colissée,
Boulevard Mohammed Zerktouni
(tel: (024) 448 893), which screens independent international and Moroccan film as well as blockbusters, and the
Institut Français, Route de la Targa, Djebel Guéliz (tel: (024) 446 930), which shows mainly French-language films. The annual
Marrakech International Film Festival (see
Special Events) takes place in November or December, attracting local indie filmmakers as well as marquee names like Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and Roman Polanski.
Literary Notes: Among books by modern Moroccan writers available in translation, there are few specifically on Marrakech. The most notable is
The Sand Child (1985), a novel about a girl raised as a boy by her father in Marrakech by prize-winning Fez-born author Tahar ben Jelloun. Another 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 capture the voices of marginalised members of Moroccan society.
The new generation of Moroccan novelists is also growing ever bolder in tackling social issues and rich characters. Take for example
Welcome to Paradise (2003), in which Marrakech’s own Mahi Binebine tells the tale of a smuggler and an accidental fellowship of would-be Moroccan emigrants, or Rabat-based Leila Abouzeid’s
The Director and Other Stories (2005), which address gaps between generations and income levels that are widening in urban centers like Marrakech.
The Voices of Marrakech (1978) by the Nobel-prize-winning author Elias Canetti is perhaps the best-known 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 warlord 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.
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The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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