Context
Jamaa el Fna, at night
Abdelmajid Arrif
Jamaa el Fna in Marrakech (Morocco) is a square and market-place, famous for its cultural and human interaction, rich and unique enough to be included in UNESCO's project, Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
The marrakchi public, or one made up of Moroccan and foreign tourists, move between the different story-tellers, musicians and performers. Every day the spectacle is repeated, yet different, giving the square a different colour, feel, a different look, a different sound.
The film focusses on the night-time entertainment in the Square. Indeed, although the Jamaa el-Fna seems quite stable, with its activities and its urban identity, it actually changes all the time according to the rhythms and forms of the various activities happening at specific times. Its activities are dependent on the night-time or the day-time public and on rituals which mark the day.
Public speaking, and also more intimate forms of expression such as story-telling, happen during the day, when the spoken word doesn't have to fight the music which dominates at night. “The music has covered the word with its noise,” one of the storytellers, Nini told me.
As the sun sets, the ballet of waiters setting out their tables begins, anticipating the pleasures to come: food and a strong turn-out of musical acts, who compete against each other to “catch” the passing trade by playing their music louder and ever louder. At night the place is buzzing.
The lights from the restaurateurs' stalls, combined with the smoke of grilled meat, evoke the night and give it a very special feel for the wandering spectators and circles of performers. A sensitive landscape, conducive to the pleasure of the senses, a stark contrast with the harsh light of day.
Jamaa el-Fna is an area where the spoken word and the human form draw a geography in roundness, moving circles where the pleasure of spectacle is experienced by being close to people, by the compactness and density of the social body, but which, in public, also shows the fault lines and symbolic violences working it.
The system of people and performances obeys a rhythm of changes according to the time of day and night, its springs are not immediately discernible behind a screen of money changing hands with the tourists. It is important to observe during the day there are shows with religious roots (snake charmers, Majdoub), today quite discrete, which at night disappear, replaced by musicians, entertainers and restaurant waiters.
Jamaa el-Fna is an area where the spoken word and the human form draw a geography in roundness, moving circles where the pleasure of spectacle is experienced by being close to people, by the compactness and density of the social body, but which, in public, also shows the fault lines and symbolic violences working it. A place that brings together different audiences, each feeling the different conditions differently, and which make of that difference the essence of their activities and exchanges. A place of pleasure, discovery, invention and exoticism, of misunderstandings, relationships based on money, which the performances veil but the lateness of the night reveals, by encouraging improbable encounters between people from very different worlds and by lifting the veil on uncertain destinies.
Bibliography
Place jemaa el fna, Patrimoine culturel immatériel de Marrakech, Bureau de l’UNESCO pour le Maghreb, Rabat, Maroc
