[Amira]

Princess Lalla Hasna inaugurates 4th Mawazine-Rythmes du Monde

Rabat, May 20 - Princess Lalla Hasna (younger sister of King Mohammed VI) presided on Thursday, the opening ceremony of the 4th Mawazine-Rythmes du Monde Festival. The opening ceremony in the Mohammed V theatre featured the Indonesian dance of Mangkunagaran.

Four-centuries old, this majestic dance associates the rigour of delicate gestures and the grace and poetry of charming expression. All Mangkunagaran palace family members took part in this dance as dancers, choreographers, musicians and librettists.

Earlier, a parade starring folklore musical and artistic bands went through the main avenues of the imperial city to invite the capital population to a succulent menu.

All week long, Rabat will live to the sounds of musical bands coming from the five corners of the globe, in a unique moment when Latin American vibrations embrace African rhythms and Middle East music interacts in complete symbiosis with European sounds.

The festival will feature top world artists, notably the emotion-filled voice of Benin's Kidjo, Venezuela's salsa maestro Oscar D'Leon, Brazilian samba star, Dona Inah, Cape Verde's Lura, Lebanon's Nassim Maalouf, Niger's Peul Wodaabe band, Germany's Bando band, Spain's Rafael Jimenez and Radio Tarifa band and Tunisia's duo Dorsaf Hamdani and Khaled Ben Yahia.

Also among the participants in this event are Moroccan singers Abdelwahab Doukkali, Ihsan R'miki, Hadra Chefchaouen, Abdellatif Bayati and Salah Cherki.

The 8.5 million Euros festival is an opportunity to discover world music and to promote the cultural and tourist potentials of the Moroccan capital.