Held on the sidelines of the 29th edition of the International Publishing and Book Fair (SIEL), this tribute celebrates more than 60 years of artistic creation of the deceased in dance, choreography, writing and production, in the presence his family, his relatives, his friends and a number of people from different backgrounds who knew or knew him, indicates a press release from the organizers.
This tribute ceremony, in which the presidents of the CCME and the CLB will take part in addition to numerous artists, will be punctuated by a projection on Zinoun’s route, as well as a musical interlude, adds the same source.
The first dancer of Moroccan origin to be designated a star dancer in Europe, Lahcen Zinoun returned to his native country to lead a long, multifaceted artistic career, which ended four months ago at the age of 80, on January 16, 2024 in Casablanca.
Director and director, he has directed four short films and two feature films, and was in the midst of preparing a new film project before his death.
With his wife, the dancer Michèle Barette, the artist created a dance school in 1978 as well as a company, the Ballet-Théâtre Zinoun, where many dancers were and continue to be trained, among whom their two sons stand out. , Jaïs and Chems-Eddine.
The late man also shared his ambition to preserve Moroccan dance heritage and his fight to allow Moroccan youth to benefit from solid artistic training, a fight that is still relevant today.
In May 2023, Lahcen Zinoun’s autobiographical story, “The Forbidden Dream” (Maha Éditons), presented on the occasion of the last edition of SIEL, was republished with the support of the CCME and the CLB.
This reissue, specifies the press release, aimed to ensure the sustainability of the life story of this multifaceted artist, who left his suitcases in Belgium in 1964, with the hope of fulfilling his dream as a dancer there, at the time where his compatriots began to arrive in numbers to work in mines, production factories and construction sites, encouraged by the signing, on February 17, 1964, of agreements for the recruitment of labor between the two Kingdoms, whose 60th anniversary we are celebrating this year.