Background
Moroccan music and dance before the show
Gnawa music, oriental dance and the evening performers of Jemaa el-Fnaa: the vocabulary behind a Marrakech dinner show, so the night makes more sense.
Reserve your night at Nouba ↗A note on what to expect
The Nouba ticket names singers, aerial acrobats and dancers. It does not publish a running order or a song list, and the restaurant decides who performs. This guide is background reading, not a programme: it explains a few traditions you may hear about in Marrakech, so that if one turns up on the night, you know what you are watching. Nothing here is a promise that a given piece will be performed, and the restaurant is the only one who can say what is on its programme on your night.
Gnawa: the music of the guembri
Wikipedia says the instruments define gnawa music: heavy iron castanets called qraqeb, and a three-string lute known as the guembri, hajhuj or sentir. A song repeats one phrase or a few lines, and what seems like one long song is often a series of chants. The tradition belongs to a community with roots in sub-Saharan Africa, and its songs preserve the memory of slavery in Morocco. In 2019 UNESCO inscribed it on its list of intangible cultural heritage.
Where you meet it in Marrakech
Gnawa groups perform in bright robes and caps with drums, castanets and a guembri, and you may see them outdoors in the city. Wikipedia describes Jemaa el-Fnaa as a place known for its concentration of traditional activities by storytellers, musicians and performers, and notes that UNESCO proclaimed its cultural space a masterpiece of intangible heritage in 2001. The restaurant show is a different setting, but the music's sound will be familiar if you have walked the square first.
Oriental dance
The oriental dance on a Marrakech bill usually means raqs sharqi, a term for the Egyptian style of belly dance. Wikipedia says it emerged as a stage and cabaret adaptation of older Egyptian social and folk dances, and of the professional entertainers who danced at weddings and other celebrations. It became the classical style of dance in Egypt by the 1950s. It is a stage form, built for audiences at a distance, which is why it fits a restaurant with a floor.
Why the restaurant pairs a show with each menu
The booking calendar offers one service with a Moroccan and oriental show and a Moroccan menu, and another with an international show and a fusion Asian menu. The pairing is the restaurant's design: the food and the entertainment share a theme in each service. That is why the guides on this site tell you to choose a service by the evening you want, not by the date alone.
Words you may hear
A few terms are enough to follow a Marrakech evening. A guembri is the three-string lute at the heart of gnawa music. Qraqeb are the iron castanets that give it its metallic pulse. A lila, also called a derdeba, is the gnawa ritual: a liturgy of song and dance, in Wikipedia's words. Raqs sharqi is the Egyptian-style stage dance usually meant by oriental dance. None of these are promised on the Nouba ticket, but each is a name worth knowing if a performer introduces one.
How to watch
In a dinner show the programme runs alongside the meal. A local magazine describes the show as accompanying dinner without interrupting it, with the energy rising as the night goes on. Order your drinks early, so you are not flagging a waiter during a number, and let the plates go cold if something is happening on the floor. Applause is welcome. Ask the staff before you take photographs, and follow any request they make.
Sources