The Princess!

On Friday, I went to one of the expensive shows at the Sacred Music festival. There are many shows taking place all around Fes, every afternoon late into the night, and they are roughly classified by 'expensive' or 'free.' Every night, there are 3 free shows, by some local or smaller bands, out in open venues or Plazas around the city. I was at the beginning of one on Thursday (which, of course, started late) and it was really fun! The music was very energetic, and there were a lot of people. However, I was there by myself, and so I got hassled by Moroccan men more than it was worth, so I left. Suzanne and Candace went later (with some male friends) and had a more positive experience with the crowd, although they said it just continued to grow throughout the night, until it wasn't even comfortable to watch the show. It was really THE place to be, I guess! I'm reminded of the many times in myths and stories that some type of 'box of duplication' comes up, where anything you place inside (money, food, jewels) becomes twice as much. It sounds like this show, in it's walled-in plaza, was like that. Except that somebody KEPT opening and closing the door, making twice as much, four times as much, eight times as much...

Back to the Princess. On Friday night, I went to one of the 'expensive' shows. It was the performance of the Cambodian Royal Ballet, which I am deeming a misnomer, since the dance they performed was not in the slightest remenicient of a 'ballet.' I will now call it the Cambodian Royal Cambodian Dance Troup. They did traditional Cambodian dance.

Before they began, suddenly everyone in the audience stood up and pressed towards the isles! Like a good crowd member, I followed suit. Between the Moroccan women in front of me and the Spanish guy behind me, we all figured out the cause of the disruption - the Princess!! I suppose she's called the princess becasue 'Queen' implies too much political power, but she is the wife of the King Mohammed VI. She is his ONLY wife, and he is the first Moroccan King to take only one woman. Islamic law dictates something to the effect of "men should have no more than 3 wives" (someoen correct me if that's not quite right) so most kings have taken 3 to show their power and desirability. M-6, as the 'cool' king has been called, has been the face of revolutionary change in Morocco, even including his own wife and family. Princess Lala Selma takes great pride in attending the Sacred Music Festival, to show her support of the arts, and does so even in the absence of her husband! This year, she paraded down the red carpet - only a few feet from me!!!- with only the Cambodian Royal Lady at her side. Well, and a few dozen news cameras and reporters. I could see in an instant why all cameras would flock to her. Tall and slender, she keeps her hair uncovered, and it flowed sleek and straight past her waist. She was blindingly brilliant in a gold caftan (or taksheta?) with at least three layers, the top one being embroidered with thousands of tiny gold beads, and topped with a wide golden caftan belt. She paraded in, waving at everyone in the audience as she entered, and sat up front for the duration of the show.

Sitting for the show was rare. It reminded me of the typical 'really really important guy,' who comes to the charity walk-a-thon, talks on his business phone the whole time, and leaves early; at least he can say he's been there. At any one point in the show, about half the chairs were empty. People were arriving throughout the show, and leaving throughout the show. People talked on their phones during the entire performance. Others were continually standing up (like the lady in front of me) to take photos or film portions of the show. Conversation floated from most of the audience, in normal tones of voice. It was a different sort of audience.

The show itself was fantastic. I'm pretty sure I missed large bits of the storyline, but it wasn't so important. It seemed to me to be about two noble or royal people, a man and a woman, who were in love, but promised to be married to different people. The dance style was very western-asian, with slow Tai-chi style moves, elaborate beaded costumes and headdresses, and emphasis on movements of fingers, feet, and eyes.

The highlight was the slow-motion swordfight in the second scene! About 20 people duelled with Machetes in perfect formation. It was really artistic!!

The lowlight was in the fourth act, when my camera broke.

Sacred Music

The theme of this year's Annual Festival of Sacred Music is the enlightenment that comes at the start of a journey, although it has been expressed that the theme was written in Arabic, and doesn't quite translate to French. They did the best they could with it, and what they ended up saying in French is something that doesn't quite translate into English. So we've done the best we can, and come up with "the enlightenment that comes at the start of a journey."

This theme resonated throughout the city Friday evening, with the opening ceremony of this 10 day festival being the start of an exotic journey for so many visitors to the city. As for me, for once I felt like a side-character in the book of the journey; a helpful guide the protagonist chats with by the side of the road. So many people from every Arab nation, and all over Europe have flooded into Fes. They find it all novel and exotic, and it was so recently that I saw it with the same eyes. Now, my strangeness is dwarfed by having SO MANY new people here, for their week or two weeks. For me, Fes stretches back throughout the last year, and forward through the next. Though still not much time, somehow it's no longer the novelty or the strangeness that jumps out at me, but the familiarity. Fes is comfortable. This week, it dawned on me that all the cultural and linguistic difficulties that I once encountered don't register as 'difficulties' anymore - they, too, are comfortable. Fes has taken me in.