In the spring and summer of 1995, from Meknes to Marrakech, photographer Jean-Luc Manaud, writer and filmmaker Pierre Guicheney, and ethnologist Viviana Pâques did a story for Geo Magazine on rituals and pilgrimages Gnawa and Aïssawa. Jean-Luc Manaud reported from the heart of the two fraternities and brought special images. A new exhibition at the Museum of Mouassine, Morocco, pays tribute to Jean-Luc Manaud, who died in 2015.
The music of the Gnawa, of Sudanese origin, now Mali, of typical African influence, is a music of exorcism and trance . The dancer is driven by the the Guembri “three strings skin covered plucked lute” players who introduce rhythm,maintained by the crotales ” antique cymbals”, which ensures the constant rhythmic background to the point of inducing conditions to the entry into trance. The game master then develops the melodic flow, seeking to capture the “spirit” of a dancer. It is a music where the world refers to a cosmological system organizing correspondence between the psychic type, the elements, the seasons, the ages of man, the colors.
Jean-Luc Manaud, Gnawa: septcouleurs
September 24 – December 15, 2016
Musée de Mouassine
4, Derb El Hammam
Marrakesh, Morroco
