2023-12-01 10:54:10
The Vodun Days, a new format for the festival of endogenous religions celebrated each year in Ouidah, are taking shape. After the official announcement made a few weeks ago through a press release, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, was in front of media professionals, this Thursday, November 30, 2023 in Cotonou, to provide more clarification on the context of this initiative, the content of the festivities, the transition from the Vodun Festival to Vodun Days, the choice of location and the arrangements made to meet the challenge of this first edition scheduled for January 9 and 10, 2024 in Ouidah.
By deciding to convene through this meeting, all the creative expressions around this marker of identity, Benin wants to fully assume, according to Minister Abimbola, its vocation as a land of pilgrimage and cradle of Vodun. This ambition, embodied through several flagship projects of its Action Program, aims to develop religious tourism around this heritage. Facing media professionals, Minister Babalola Jean-Michel Abimbola announced that the Vodun Days are part of the realization of the ambitious “Benin Revealed” program dedicated to revealing the Beninese cultural exception and making it a true pillar of the diversification of our tourist offer. New name of the Vodun Festival which was held annually in Ouidah, the Vodun Days, designed to attract a wider audience, an international audience, aim to celebrate Vodun arts, culture and spirituality in a spirit of rediscovery and reappropriation of our heritage. This initiative presents itself as a privileged window on a heritage of unsuspected richness, opening the way to deep reflection and the deconstruction of clichés,” suggested Minister Abimbola. Better still, the Vodun Days event is part of a global program to promote Vodun heritage, through the construction of the International Vodun Museum in Porto-Novo, the implementation of the “Vodun Convents Route”, the continuation of the Porto-Novo international festival which became the Vodun arts and culture festival, etc.
Enticing content
Thus, for two days, January 9 and 10, participants will be entitled to programming celebrating the vitality and diversity of the religious and cultural expressions of Vodun. Specific arrangements have been made to create a large-scale immersive event. A journey through the “City-Museum of Ouidah” will offer a stroll around 4 redeveloped emblematic squares (Place Maro, esplanade du Fort Français, Place du Temple des Pythons and Sacred Forest of Kpassè and at the level of an ephemeral convent dedicated to Vodun Mami installed facing the sea). A stage on the beach will host Beninese and international artists for festive concerts. The Vodun Days village will offer numerous activities, as well as the sale of local crafts and even restaurant areas. Additional off-site services are also planned which will make Vodun Days a qualitative experience with the development of a campsite offering tent rental for different categories of audiences and access to a dedicated parking area.
What about the usual celebration of January 10 and the secularism of Benin?
Taking advantage of journalists’ concerns about what is becoming of the traditional festival of January 10, the Minister in charge of culture reassured public opinion that the Vodun Festival festivities will continue to take place on January 10, throughout the country. extent of the national territory. Furthermore, the State, guarantor of secularism, provides support for other religious events, the restoration and control of the narrative on our heritage; to the restoration of the dignity of all “the faithful of each religion” with a view to social cohesion, and to the contribution of cultural and religious wealth within the framework of tourism development and to Benin’s contribution to universal. A corner of the veil has also been lifted on the composition of the various committees which are working hard to win the challenge of this first edition. According to his explanations, the Vodun rites committee provides technical support for the development of religious tourism; It is therefore not a question of a national representative committee but of work to label Vodun for which its members have been designated.
QA December 1, 2023
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