Words on the Sand.
The Storyteller of Jemaa El Fna
Cicogne Teatro
Claudio Simeone
Abderrahim El Hadiri
When evening falls, Jemaa El Fna, the large and colorful square of Marrakech, comes alive with a new, intense nightlife.
From every corner of the city, people arrive to sit at the stalls selling food and sweets and gather around the musicians, vendors, and jugglers.
In a corner, on a simple carpet, aided by a few objects – a vase, a stick, a drum, a stool – the storyteller tells stories that have reached him by word of mouth.
Words that, bouncing from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other, have blended Eastern tradition with Western tradition, so much so that the characters and themes of one have easily flowed into the other.
He can thus tell the comic adventures of Giufà, the tale of the black sheep fighting Baba Gullo, nursery rhymes for children, Latin metamorphoses, or Eastern myths.
His are stories from every place, made to build a relationship of complicity and participation, a physical and emotional exchange between the speaker and the listener.
In collaboration with: Municipality of Mombarcaro, Municipality of Arguello, Municipality of Paroldo, and Municipality of San Benedetto Belbo.
With the contribution of: Fondazione CRC.