CHAIR OF CROSS CULTURES AND GLOBALIZATION
The Gnawa experience as a strategic laboratory of cultural hybridizations.
Rooted in the Essaouira Festival, the Chair of Cross Cultures and Globalization focuses on the living forms of cultural hybridity, taking Gnaoua music as a starting point. More than a musical genre, the Gnaoua heritage is a language of trance, ritual, and blending, at the intersection of Africa, the Maghreb, and Afro-descendant diasporas.
The Chair brings together artists, researchers, and cultural mediators to consider culture as movement, circulation, and a space of shared transformation. Through roundtables, research projects, and international collaborations, it explores globalization not as a process of homogenization, but as a generator of creative otherness. Drawing on Essaouira’s unique experience, it offers a sensitive and multifaceted perspective on the cultural interweaving at play in our contemporary world.
THE PROGRAM :
SATURDAY JUNE 21, 2025 – Atlas Essaouira Riad Resort HOTEL – «La Caravelle room»
ROUND TABLE 1
Rituals and Resonances : The Spiritual Essence of Gnawa Music
4.00PM – 5.00PM
An exploration of the mystical, symbolic, and healing dimensions of Gnaoua practices through the lens of history, trance, and sacredness.
ROUND TABLE 2
Gnawa Remix : When Ancestral Rhythms Meet Current Trends
4.00PM – 6.30PM
A reflection on contemporary blends of Gnawa music with jazz, rock, electronic music, and new global artistic languages.
Q&A Sessions: 30 minutes
Mediators/organizers:
- Raphaël Liogier (IAS – UM6P)
- Saâd Tazi (IAS – UM6P)
- Marouane Jaouat (IAS – UM6P)
- Nawal Chraibi (IAS – UM6P)
Participants :
- Chikara (Ricci) Inagaki
- Cynthia J. Becker
- Abderrahim Bourkia
- Zined Faïdi