Tangier-America Day! (and my 1st academic conference, ever)
As it happened, the US Cultural Attaché in Morocco caught Nacim and Zakaria’s performance at the Fulbright Symposium (see previous post for videos). A week later, the American Embassy in Rabat contacted me to help organize a fusion performance for Tangier-America Day in – you guessed it – Tangier. I happily obliged. The idea was to showcase American and Moroccan collaboration, so we brought together Nacim Haddad, Zakaria Aktoui, Aicha (a Watson Fellow from the States/phenomenal singer), and myself. Aicha brought a soul-stirring addition of jazz vocals and spoken word to a Gnawa 3-piece band: Nacim on the haj houj, Zakaria on the qraqeb, and yours truly on the tabla (hand drums). The result was quite a spectacle (YES, that was a double entendre in French!), and we even had the honor of playing for the US Ambassador, Samuel Kaplan, and his wife Sylvia. Believe it or not, Zakaria did his first ever Gnawa toe touch less than a foot away from them. Check it out. Oh yeah, we called ourselves Gnawa Voyageur…and Zakaria and I just might be the greatest dance duo in Tangier-America Day history (see video 3).
Here’s the opener, a variation on “Bu Lila. Aicha comes in with the 2nd chorus on English:
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Gnawa Show at the Fulbright Symposium
Every year the Moroccan American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (aka MACECE) hosts a 3-day conference to bring together all the Fulbrighteres in the country to present their findings. After opening remarks by US Ambassador Samuel Kaplan and his wife Sylvia, we heard from professors, students, and visiting scholars, on a variety of subjects ranging from Maghrebi conceptions of citizenship, to religious rhetoric during the Spanish Civil War, to the Equity and Reconciliation Commission established to address injustices from the Years of Lead, to the new generation of hip hop artists in Casablanca. As for my own presentation: New Perceptions of Gnawa: Reassessing Tagnawit (Authenticity), I faced a dilemma of sorts. How do I go about talking up saints and rituals without angering the spirits? So, I decided to model my 15 minutes of Fulbright fame after a Lila, complete with music and dance by none other than Nacim Haddad and Zakaria Aktoui. As tradition dictates, we began with songs from Awlad Al-Bambara, and ended with Aisha Qandisha. Check it out. I’ve included a 2-minute recap of my slides (with music) and I’ve paired the performances with transliterated/translated lyrics below:
The Presentation in a nutshell:
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The Legend of the Kasbah Gnawa (and the French Circus School)
Not too long ago, Nacim, Zakaria and I strolled out to the coast of Sale to explore the Kasbah Gnawa, a fort that dates back hundreds of years and once held newly arrived slaves. It’s a truly remarkable site that is quickly losing its historical significance. Due to a variety of external pressures, ranging from commercialism to Wahabbism, the sacred aspects of Gnawi culture have been marginalized, and – in the words of Professor Deborah Kapchan – their “historical relation to slavery now only occupies a place in contemporary Moroccan imagination,” even though the practice of slavery was not abolished in Morocco until the early 20th century. What’s more, the very fact that Moroccans point to Essaouira as Gnawa’s sole epicenter highlights the folklorization of a people through festivals and concerts.
Facing these external forces, the Gnawa community has taken an active role in defining “original” places, songs, rituals, and individuals. This task has proven to be complex, in that no common rubric exists for determining authenticity, or tagnawit. As mentioned in my last post, “What does it take to be a Gnawi,” there are plenty of arguments within the Gnawa community that allow for anyone to become a member, and thus possess tagnawit. However, tagnawit is not limited to individuals, and can be passed onto locations, styles, timelines, and bloodlines. As far as historical sites of importance go, the most influential places are determined by the path of migration that many slaves followed from sub-Saharan areas, as shown below:
What Does it Take to be a Gnawi?
Ancient Gnawa
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The Oujda Chronicles (Pt. Deux): A Torrid Tale of Nabil’s First Flight
The Quickest Wat To Brunch
Andrew had detected wafts of hash browns and eggs Benedict from our hostel window, so we let our noses guide us towards Melilla’s fort, up a long flight of marble steps, and into a white tent, packed with Spanish families. As we took our seats, I asked our server what we could get for eight Euros. She left us a menu and skipped off to ask her manager about that day’s specials. I was reading entrees aloud, salivating to myself, when a pink man with white ring of hair around his head, laid two freckled hands on our table, and cleared his throat. “You may leave, por favor.” “Por que?” I countered, in perfect Spanish. “Porque yo queiro que te vayas,” he shot back, almost singing the words. I could not believe it. NO ME LO PUEDO CREER! Not only was I being kicked out, but the proprietor was also quoting a hit single by Luis Miguel, also known as El Sol de Mexico, and El Rey, perhaps one of the most famous Latin American pop singers alive. Or, maybe I’m just losing it.
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