Avuncular American

Tarab Tanger: Traditional Music From the World Over

Now that it's almost over, I finally get around to writing about Tarab Tanger, a five-day long festival of traditional world music that is now in its third edition.  For a discussion of the meaning of tarab, Oudman has a very thoughtful piece.

From the looks of it, this festival, one among the many in Morocco's very full calendar of music festivals, is a keeper.  We look forward to many more years of this collection of top folk groups from the world over, with Moroccan music liberally sprinkled throughout the week.

But that's natural, given Morocco's wide range of musical styles.  As writer, composer, and musicologist Paul Bowles wrote, "[Morocco has] as diversified a body of music as one could find in any land west of India."

Speaking of India, the opening night featured Samvâd, preceded by the Franco-Iranian group led by Alireza Ghrobani and Keyvan Chemirani.  Both groups have a fantastic repertoire of string, percussion, and vocals, and Tarab Tanger's setting in the newly-restored Portuguese fort of Borj al-Hajoui, overlooking port and medina, is a fitting amalgam of Tangier's international past and present.

And last night, we attended an entrancing (literally) concert in the beautiful arcaded courtyard of the Kasbah Museum, an homage to music master Cheikh Ahmed Zaytuni by the Said Belcadi group, a Sufi order from Tangier.  We've already attended a few Arab-Andalusian concerts here - and that is the specialty of Tarab Tanger's organizers, Confluences Musicales - but this Sufi concert was really the best so far.

Last year, we were dismayed to have arrived in Tangier just days too late for Tarab Tanger Number 2.  Happily, this is an annual concert, and it really is a high point for traditional and world music enthusiasts.

Now, can we get an American traditional music group on next year's program? 

(Image via Made In Medina)

Gerald Loftus

Paint the Legation

 Peindre la Légation

It all started with this observation: the art collection at the Legation Museum barely had any images of the Legation building itself.

The Tangier American Legation, given to the United States by Morocco's Sultan Moulay Slimane in 1821.  America's oldest diplomatic building.  It deserves to be the subject of Moroccan, American, and European artists.

Hence "Paint the Legation" - an evening where we will unveil new works depicting the historic building, and raise money to help (re)Paint the Legation, or at least those parts of it that the State Department's Office of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) hasn't yet refurbished.

Reception, tombola, auction... we're going to try it all at our fundraising event on Saturday 2 July at 18:00.

Gerald Loftus

Just Another International Conference in Tangier

I had to look up "intermediality" when I was invited to this conference, but it's not so difficult.  It's basically the nexus of theatre and performance with other media, including digital.  Plays on the internet.  Touch screens on stage.  Films within a one-woman show.  The sky is the limit for permutations on the theme.

This somewhat esoteric subject has its experts, and many of them gathered in Tangier over the weekend for the annual conference of the International Center for Performance Studies, based here.  ICPS not only hosts an impressive gathering yearly, but does it in English, French, and Arabic - and produces multilingual publications on conference themes and other topics.

All of this is largely due to one man, Dr. Khalid Amine, ICPS President and professor of English at Tangier/Tetouan's Abdelmalek Essaadi University.

Hats off to ICPS and Dr. Khalid Amine for yet another impressive international gathering, all done in a very low-key but professional way.  What does ICPS have in store for us next year - "Performing Tangier" 2012 edition?

Gerald Loftus