During the opening weekend of the festival, this panel looks at the historical and cultural routes linking the Gnawa tradition with trans-Atlantic Yoruba cultures—Candomblé, Lucúmí/Santería and Vodún. Originating from what is now southwest Nigeria as well as parts of Benin and Togo, the Yoruba civilization developed a complex spiritual system around the worship of Orishas, Ifà divination, and a rich practice of musical ritual. According to Yoruba scholar Félix Ayoh’Omidire, Yoruba spirituality can be understood as a common root whose branches spread along two different routes in the trade with enslaved people: the trans-Atlantic route to Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti (Candomblé, Santería, Vodún), and the trans-Saharan route used to transport slaves to Morocco (Gnawa). This theory provides the conceptual underpinning for the entire festival. 

Mohcine Ramdan, a linguist based at the University of Munich, a musician, and the bandleader of Jisr, gives an overview of Gnawa today: from its sub-Saharan origins and the caravan routes that brought it to Morocco, to the codification of the lila and the central role of the maalem, through to its current reality between ritual, festivalization, pop-cultural crossover, and diasporic transmission in Europe. 

Margherita D’Amelio, a pizzica and tarantella therapist and dancer from Salento, follows the echoes of Gnawa northwards across the Mediterranean. The Apulian tarantella and the healing pizzica are part of a broader mediterranean network of trance and healing rituals in which rhythm, repetition, and physical exhaustion obey principles surprisingly similar to those at work in the lila—a northern echo of the same sonic and ritual logic. 

In his contribution, Alaa Zouiten, oud player and curator of the festival, uses his own practice to explain how deeply flamenco—long viewed as a quintessentially Andalusian artform—is interwoven with influences from North Africa and especially from Gnawa. From the viewpoint of a Moroccan musician, who for years has been working at the interface between flamenco and Gnawa, Andalusia appears not as a border but as a continuum—the northern shore of a single musical ocean. 

Each of these four voices will be accompanied by a master practitioner of their respective tradition who will give brief live demonstrations of the theoretical insights provided—opening the festival’s exploration of these interconnections over four weekends.