Home > Culture > Where Continents Converge: Fez Sacred Music Festival Kicks Off with a Renaissance of Spirit
As the sun set over the ancient walls of Bab Makina, the 28th Fez Festival of Sacred Music transported audiences into a realm where tradition and transcendence intertwined.
Fez – As the sun set over the ancient walls of Bab Makina, the 28th Fez Festival of Sacred Music transported audiences into a realm where tradition and transcendence intertwined.
This year’s opening night, curated under the visionary theme “Renaissances: From Nature to the Sacred,” presented a meticulously crafted journey through sound, movement, and spiritual expression, bringing together an extraordinary ensemble of artists from across continents and traditions.
Morocco’s Princess Lalla Hasnaa presided over the opening ceremony of the 28th annual Fez Festival of World Sacred Music.
The first day of the festival featured Le Deba, the mesmerizing Sufi ritual performed by women from Mayotte in the Comoros Islands, their chants and swaying movements invoking centuries of devotional practice.
From this foundation of African Sufism, the stage welcomed Omar Areej Mawlidi, whose soulful Omani Sufi chants bridge the Arabian Peninsula with North African spirituality.
Guiding the audience through this odyssey is Malian actor and storyteller Habib Dembélé, whose resonant narration wove together the evening’s diverse performances with the timeless power of oral tradition.
West Africa’s kaleidoscopic sacred arts took center stage as Le Zaouli de Manfla unfolded, its intricate masked dance embodying ancestral wisdom through breathtaking precision.
The rhythm intensified with the towering presence of Les Échassiers, their stilted movements creating a living bridge between earth and sky, followed by the Compagnie Méhansio from the Ivory Coast, whose ritual leopard dance channeled raw, primal energy through disciplined artistry.
The spiritual journey continued with Senegal’s Kassaïdes mourides from Dahira Safinatoul Aaman, their devotional hymns celebrating the Sufi path of Sheikh Amadou Bamba.
Morocco’s mystical heritage showed is real colors through Le Sama de Meknès, where whirling dervishes spun in celestial harmony, their movements a visual prayer.
A striking counterpoint emerged as Corsican mezzo-soprano Battista Acquaviva breathed new life into Renaissance sacred music, her crystalline voice echoing through the courtyard like a revelation from another age.
The evening reached its crescendo with the thunderous Tambours du Burundi, whose polyrhythmic mastery transformed the space into a pulsating temple of sound.
Behind this multisensory masterpiece stands a team of visionary creators: Alain Weber’s masterful conception and staging, Jean-Paul Méhansio’s evocative choreography, Christophe Olivier’s luminous lighting design (assisted by Gaël Boucault), and Spectaculaires’ immersive mapping projections.
As the final notes faded into the Fez night, this opening ceremony stood as a living testament to the festival’s enduring mission to show, through the universal language of sacred art, the profound connections that bind humanity across cultures, eras, and beliefs.
With eight more days of programming ahead, the 28th edition promises to be a true renaissance of the spirit, inviting all who attend to rediscover what it means to be human in an ever-changing world.
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Where Continents Converge: Fez Sacred Music Festival Kicks Off with a Renaissance of Spirit – Morocco World News
