IZLAN berber songs, poems & dances - Atlas and moroccan desert

Musee du quai Branly - PARIS - FRANCE
From Friday 27th November to Saturday 5th December 2009

From the High Atlas mountains to the Souss Plain to the desert of the Anti-Atlas, an evocation of the rich Berber poetical and musical heritage of Morocco.

Artistic directors: Alain Weber and Lahsen Hira

This show created especially for the musée du quai Branly, has been designed as a tribute to the poetic richness of the Amazigh people, conveying the raw beauty of a mountainous and desert environment. In tamazight Izlan means poems which, whether sung or chanted, are inextricably linked to rituals and dances. In the mountain villages of the Middle Atlas, at the heart of the rural communities, woman appeared like a benevolent goddess as she blended in with the elements; she merged with the rebirth of Nature (Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine). Elsewhere, in the Western Saharan community of the desert, during the guedra dance, a woman draped in indigo blue contrasting with the amber colour of the henna, kneels down, eyes closed, and throws her head about in a frenetic, age-old trance.

On the Souss plain, the Rwayes, poet heirs to the Chleuhs tribal nobility, express themselves in tachelaït, magnificently declaiming another vision of life. Accompanied by the metallic and repetitive sound of the rbab, a coarse-stringed instrument, and the naqous (a car wheel rim hit with a stick), the poetic proclamation is conveyed in an atmosphere charged with dramatic tension. In parallel with the Izlan performances, the Tarwa sidi Ali Ben Nasser Brotherhood, directed by Moulay Firyadi Mohammed, invites us to discover Berber acrobatic art. The acrobats of Agadir, true travelling artists, criss-cross the countrys villages amazing audiences with their contortions, acrobatics and their famous Arab somersault (ti ygnna), a sort of leap in the sky.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• izlan
• berber
• songs
• poems
• dances
• Atlas
• morocco
• desert
• music

[Gwynsek]

Magical rhythm , the dances too and the costumes are shiny white !

[ChleuhaRokma]

Euuuuum FOiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiREEEEEEiii CKoooiiii saaaa !! ayyaa TiiiiNGHiiiiR !!!!!!!!!!