Re-imagine the SACRED…

The international Fez festival of music, spirituality and philosophy turns knowledge and hope luminescent. Yes, life's not so bleak anymore
Akshay Bakaya Fes (Morocco)/Paris

Now, where in the world is Fez? Or is it Fes? Like other modestly informed English speakers, I knew about the Fez cap that had made its way from Mediterranean shores to heads distant and varied, from Ottoman artillerymen to colonial regiments, from Suhartos and Sukarnos of Indonesia to achkan-clad Maulana Azads and khaki-chaddi Hedgewars of India.

But, besides being known for that conical flat-topped Turki topi, the magnificent imperial and spiritual capital of Morocco has other claims to fame. Home to the world's oldest operating university founded in 859 AD, the colourful, bustling medina of Fès is also the world's largest contiguous car-free urban area, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, perhaps as a model of wisdom awaiting a future where cities would be restored to humans again.

Reviving that tradition is what the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music seems to be about, in a world steeped in strife, for a planet faced with destruction. First held in 1994, its nightly concerts at the luminous Bab Al-Makina Gate at the royal palace remain its central feature. In the words of Armenian-French art director, Gérard Kurdjian, who programmes the music and dance: "Fifteen years ago a tree of melodies was planted, whose roots sink into the depths of the past, into rich soils of East and West, North and South. Its branches now soar in the sky, and at its annual bloom, songs and hymns blossom - a new 'Conference of Birds' that the Persian poet Attar would not have disavowed." Also harking back to a French tradition of planting a 'Tree of Liberty' in every village, he insists, "these sacred flowers that move and unite hearts are not offerings to any religion or doctrine, but daughters of liberty".

From the opening night, the artistic 'risks' promised were evident. The Lebanese Christian Marcel Khalife sang in Arabic with an international ensemble of instrumentalists, in homage to departed friend Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet whose coffin he shouldered last August. The Moroccans in the international audience were excited, indeed subjugated, by a rare apparition in the audience of Princess Lalla Salma, young commoner, IT systems analyst that the newly crowned Mohammed VI had wed in 2002. But they were soon egged on into a chorus with Khalifé who has made Darwish's poetry, known even in Hindi, familiar to the entire Arab world.

Chastised later by a zealous Moroccan journalist for not only devoting a song 'Oummi' (Mother) to Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, but also in Arab jails, Khalife said, "As an artist I am steeped in freedom, like a fish in water. You can hear what I say, or don't listen. It's all right".

Far from our gaze, Indian artistes too have enthralled audiences here: Ravi Shankar,  Madhup Mudgal, Bauls of Bengal, Kelucharan Mohapatra and Madhavi Mudgal, among others. Now it was Shantala Shivalingappa's turn to keep the audience hypnotised with her airy lightness and vivacious grace.

Her Gamaka recital was Kuchipudi, but, brought up in Paris, she has partaken of soils of East and West with Maurice Béjart, Peter Brook and Bartabas. Resorting to the inevitable YouTube, I find a mesmerising solo she created with Pina Bausch in Wuppertal.
In 2001, with the UN listing the Fez Festival as a "remarkable event contributing to  the dialogue of civilisations", the Spirit of Fez foundation introduced the 'Fez Encounters' - languorous mornings of conversation under a giant old oak in the courtyard of the Al Batha palace, now a crafts museum.