A square can be known for its facades. In Marrakech, Jemaa el-Fna also invites you to look at what would disappear from a photograph: the voice, the gesture, the exchange between a person who tells and those who listen to him.
UNESCO describes a space where commercial activities, music, poetry and storytelling meet. The storytellers also adapt old frames to their audience. Transmission therefore does not always require repeating the same words: an oral tradition also lives by its transformations.
Protecting this heritage is not just about preserving the contours of the square. Practices must be able to continue to be deployed there. Urban and tourism pressures complicate this balance. This place reminds us that a heritage may need movement, voices and encounters: the silence of a perfectly preserved setting would not be enough to preserve it.
What we know
Description of a specific cultural space, not a custom shared by all Moroccans. Activities and their presence evolve.
To go to the source
References consulted on September 20, 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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