Festival au Désert

The Festival au Désert is an annual, taking place since 2001 outdoor concert event in Mali. The festival presents the music of the local Tuareg and Malian 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 changes taking place over three days and nights of concerts given by both local musicians as well as international guests. Amidst the vast barren landscape of the Sahara come during these days musicians, nomads, patrons, artists, tourists and local merchants together to make music and exchange ideas. The Festival au Désert today combines modernity and tradition, at the same time it opens, while respecting the different cultures and traditions of the desert, opened its doors to the outside world and sees itself now as a messenger and promoter of world peace.

History

The Festival au Désert was based on the most important traditional Tuareg festival, the annual Takoubelt in Kidal ( in Timbuktu Temakannit called ) in January 2001 initiated. The Tuareg of the Azawad came for more than a century for a few days a year to exchange ideas to make music, to dance and to relax. The journey was done in a particularly beautifully decorated camels and baggage were next to tents and carpets, traditional musical instruments. In the years of the rebellion between 1990 and 1994, these annual meetings had become impossible. In the course of reconciliation from 1995 Culture and cultural events became more important again, and strengthened their own identity. From the first and most important peace meeting of Mbouna ( about 100 km east of Timbuktu ) in September 1995, carried the nightly cultural performances to relax and processing of the carried to the grave military phase at. With the peace and the Takoubelt returned. A few years later the Festival au Désert was born.

Venues (2001-2013)

The first three editions of the festival were held at different locations in northern Mali. A the bottom of the intended circumstance of the culture of the nomadic Tuareg reflects. In January 2001, in Tin - Essako (115 km east of Kidal ) and the following year, between the 8th and 10th January 2002, which is located near the Algerian border oasis Tessalit ( Tessalit was established in February 2012 by the rebel National Movement for the liberation of Azawad - MLNA - conquered ) the Festival au Désert was organized as Takoubelt. However, the moving, due to the ever-increasing success, logistical expenses 2004 to relocate the concert organizers, the Festival au Désert after Essakane, a small oasis town about 70 kilometers west of Timbuktu. 2007 due to violent attacks on tourists spent all Western countries and America travel warnings for northern Mali. Because of the Malian government was virtually impossible to continue to ensure the safety of foreign festival-goers in the outlying Essakane, the venue in 2010 was moved to the outskirts of Timbuktu. Once in November 2011 kidnapped tourists are members of the African branch of the terror group al -Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb terrorists in Timbuktu and a traveler was shot on the street, the organizers laid the Festival au Désert in the following year to cancel. Despite the risks and with the active support of the Malian government still held the festival in 2012. Demonstrative also visited Bono, the legendary frontman of the rock band U2, the musical event and improvised together with Tinariwen song Vive le Mali, Vive la paix, Vive la musique. However, the internationally issued travel warning had an effect: not more than 100 Europeans and Americans attended the event. The guests in the end as a result of the military coup on March 21, 2012 Uncertainty in the north of the country took advantage of the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA advantage, took all the cities of Azawad region and declared on 6 April 2012, the unilateral independence of Azawad. After the northern Mali was thus finally failed as the venue for the Festival au Désert, the organizers decided the festival in 2013, first in the oasis town located in the Sahel Oursi ( about 350 km north east of Ouagadougou ) Burkina Faso embarrassed. Again security reasons were responsible for a renewed laying of the venue and timing. The Festival au Désert is expected to be held in autumn 2013 in Christoph Schlingensief's opera village in Africa Laongo (about 30 km east of Ouagadougou ).

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 the Festival au Désert and President of EFES.