Festival au Désert

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Audience at the Festival au Desert near Timbuktu , Mali 2012

The Festival au Désert is an annual open-air concert event in Mali that has been taking place since 2001 . The festival presents the music of the local Tuareg and Malians as well as the musical culture of the neighboring states Mauritania , Algeria , Niger , Burkina Faso , Ivory Coast , Guinea and Senegal as well as international guests. The concerts, which take place on three days and nights, are given by both local musicians and international guests. In the midst of the vast barren landscape of the Sahara, musicians, nomads, patrons, artists, tourists and local traders come together during these days to make music and exchange ideas. The Festival au Désert today combines modernity and tradition, at the same time it opens its doors to the outside world while preserving the different cultures and traditions of the desert and sees itself as a messenger and promoter of world peace.

history

The Festival au Désert was initiated in January 2001 on the basis of the most important traditional Tuareg festival, the annual Takoubelt in Kidal ( called Temakannit in Timbuktu ). The Tuareg of the Azawad have been coming together for a few days a year for more than a century to exchange ideas, make music, dance and relax. The journey took place on particularly magnificently decorated camels and, in addition to tents and carpets, the luggage contained traditional musical instruments. In the years of the rebellion between 1990 and 1994, these annual meetings had become impossible. In the course of the reconciliation from 1995, culture and cultural events regained importance and strengthened their own identity. Already at the first and most important peace meeting in Mbouna (about 100 km east of Timbuktu) in September 1995, the nightly cultural performances contributed to relaxation and processing of the warlike phase that had been buried in the grave. With the peace came the Takoubelt again. A few years later the Festival au Désert was born.

Venues (2001-2014)

The first three editions of the festival took place in different locations in northern Mali. A basically deliberate circumstance that reflects the culture of the nomadic Tuareg. In January 2001 in Tin-Essako (115 km east of Kidal) and the following year, between January 8 and 10, 2002, in the Tessalit oasis near the Algerian border (Tessalit was defeated in February 2012 by rebels of the National Movement for the liberation of Azawad - MLNA - conquered) the Festival au Désert was organized as Takoubelt . However, the logistical effort, which was increasing due to the success, moved the concert organizers to relocate the Festival au Désert 2004 to Essakane , a small oasis town about 70 km west of Timbuktu. In 2007 all western states and America issued travel warnings for Northern Mali due to violent attacks on tourists. Because it was almost impossible for the Malian government to continue to guarantee the safety of foreign festival visitors in remote Essakane, the venue was relocated to the outskirts of Timbuktu in 2010. After tourists were kidnapped in Timbuktu by the African offshoot of the terrorist group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and a traveler was shot on the street, the organizers considered canceling the Festival au Désert the following year. Despite the risks and with the active support of the Malian government, the festival took place in 2012. Bono , the legendary front man of the rock band U2 , also visited the music event demonstratively and improvised the song Vive le Mali, Vive la paix, Vive la musique together with Tinariwen . However, the internationally issued travel warning had an effect: no more than 100 Europeans and Americans attended the event. The rising uncertainty in the north of the country as a result of the military coup on March 21, 2012 , took advantage of the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA , captured all cities in the Azawad region and on April 6, 2012 declared Azawad's unilateral independence. After the north of Mali was finally canceled as a venue for the Festival au Désert , the organizers decided to relocate the festival in 2013 to the oasis town of Oursi in the Sahel (about 350 km northeast of Ouagadougou) in Burkina Faso . Again security reasons were responsible for a new relocation of the venue and time. The Festival au Désert is expected to take place in the autumn of 2013 in Christoph Schlingensief's Africa Opera Village in Laongo (about 30 km east of Ouagadougou ). Because of the still uncertain security situation in Mali, the 12th edition of the festival took place from January 8th to 10th, 2014 “in exile” in Berlin at the Berlin Volksbühne , Akademie der Künste and Kino Babylon .

organizer

The Festival au Désert is organized by the organizations AITMA and EFES together with Essakane Production . Ag Mohamed Aly Manny Ansar is the founder and director of Festival au Désert and President of EFES.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Festval au Desert comes from Timbuktu to Berlin" , Christoph Schlingensief's Operndorf Afrika, updates from December 9, 2013, accessed on May 26, 2014