Rachid Mendjeli, writer, director, and anthropologist, views Jmaa el-Fna Square as an alternative, polyphonic space-time where storytelling, dance, theatre, photography, and more overlap, creating a space where multiple communities coexist. He invites us to adopt a clandestine gaze–a non-touristic eye–open to the fluctuating rhythms, collective beliefs, and gestures that this ecstatic space sparks.

Photographer and filmmaker Daoud Aoulad-Syad holds a special place in the history of documentary practices in Morocco and North Africa. His 1980s photographs, particularly the Maroc series, have left their imprint on local visual culture and street photography. Daoud Aoulad-Syad developed his eye in Marrakech, a city he reveals to be far removed from the images and tourist icons that try to freeze it in a fantasy promise. He unearths Jmaa el Fna Square, the mecca of Halqa and a theatre of popular art, where he captures the fleeting nature of gestures and glances. Beyond Marrakech, Aoulad-Syad travels the length and breadth of Morocco: Azemmour, Boujaad, Meknes... following in the footsteps of showmen, street musicians, itinerant singers and other urban poets. His low-angle, moving shots seek a counterpoint, suggesting a clandestine glimpse that reveals a busy, contemporary Morocco living in the moment rather than a timeless, disembodied land.  In the Maroc series, shot in Moulay Bousselham, known for its lagoon and natural bird reserve, Aoulad-Syad immerses us in popular festivals and the moments in-between, when everyday life resumes after the show. He shares his taste for popular poetry with Ahmed Bouanani, a leading figure in Moroccan literature and cinema, of whom he says he is ‘the adopted little brother’. They published a dialogue between photography and poetry–Territoires de l'instant–together, and made the short film Mémoire Ocre (1991).