Safi – The Iklyle Centre in Tetouan, run by the Mohammed VI Foundation, has turned four days over to culture.
The program opened yesterday and runs through June 21, with a photography show and an Andalusi concert up front and books, workshops, and readings to follow.
Sixty years of photography
The opening belonged to “ 60 Years of Photography,” the Gibraltar Photographic Society’s salute to its six decades. Sixty-eight images by 25 photographers hang in the gallery on Boulevard Moulay Abbas through July 10.
Gibraltar’s hand reaches past the photographs. Its cultural service stands behind the show, through an office for relations with Morocco. Mark Montovio, who led the project, also gave a sculpting masterclass today.
A night of Andalusi music
The opening night ended in song. The Mohammed Larbi Temsamani Orchestra, under Mohammed Amine El Akrami, played Tetouan’s Andalusi repertoire, the courtly music the city has carried for generations.
The evening also honored those who run the centre’s workshops through the year.
New books and young voices
Today turned to the page. Four Moroccan writers signed new releases: Souad Annaser, Amama Qaziz, Abdeljalil El Ouazzani, and Mohammed Barouho. An earlier session hands the floor to younger writers.
For young readers
Children get days of their own, with story time, calligraphy and drawing workshops, and a film made just for them. The Iklyle’s young art and music students cap their training with a show of their own.
Saturday will bring a scholarly book talk and crown a “Voracious Reader,” the winner of a reading contest held under the slogan “We Live by Reading.”
A poetry evening, staged with Tetouan’s House of Poetry, closes the run on Sunday.
The Iklyle wants more than these few days: a lasting home for creativity across the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, and a meeting point for its artists and their audiences. For the city of the white dove, the cultural calendar has rarely been this full.
