8 Best Performing Arts in Morocco

Sponsored by the Spirit of Fez Foundation, a nonprofit association working to maintain the city's cultural heritage, the annual Fes Festival of World Sacred Music focuses on a different theme each year and has become an international favorite, attracting some of the world's finest musicians and intellectual scholars for the Fes Forum roundtable debates. Concerts are held in diverse venues across the city, including the imposing Bab Al Makina. There are also free concerts, including Sufi Nights, held daily in a palatial dar. It's currently held in June (the date varies with Ramadan), but check the website for specifics.

Essaouira is always packed over the third weekend of June, as tens of thousands of people from all over the world come to enjoy the annual four-day Gnaoua and World Music Festival. It's one of the best times to listen to traditional Gnaoua musicians. These descendants of enslaved Africans established associations across Morocco and are healers and mystics as well as musicians. Among their troupes of metal castanet (krakab) players, bass lute (gimbri) players, and drummers, they have mediums and clairvoyants who perform wild, spellbinding acts.  If you plan to visit the festival, make sure you reserve accommodations at least three months in advance as hotels and guesthouses will be full.

This cultural center is an innovative project with six floors of purpose-built exhibition space, meeting and event rooms, a state-of-the-art 160-seat theater, roof terraces, residences, and a café. Part of the nearby American Language Center, it has a full program of exhibitions, dance, theater, and other artistic pursuits, all free of charge.

In the heart of Guéliz, Le Colisée has frequent showings of Hollywood blockbusters, Bollywood melodramas, and the odd homegrown movie. Most will either be dubbed (often badly) into French or have French subtitles, but there are occasional English-language screenings of mostly American mainstream movies.

Perched on the banks of the Bou Regreg River, the gracious white curves of this Zaha Hadid--designed structure contrast with the nearby ancient Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum. Billed as the largest in Africa, the theater seats 1,800 people in its auditorium. There is a second, smaller theater as well as a restaurant, cafés, a bookstore, and outside auditorium that seats 7,000. 

Various types of live concerts, exhibitions, plays, and films are presented here throughout a regular season. Events are announced on posters around town and through the institute's brochure, which can be picked up on-site or in cafés and bookshops. All are presented in French or Arabic.

This nine-screen cinema complex in the Aguedal Zone Touristique shows all the latest blockbuster movies and mainstream films either dubbed in French or Arabic. You'll need a taxi to get there and back.

Meknès's annual international animated film festival (FICAM) at the French Institute takes place each spring, though the month may vary.