Lemma

Come together, right now with Lemma at Gnawa Festival

The fourth edition of the Gnawa Festival returns to The Hague. For five days, the best Gnawa artists from Morocco, Algeria, the Netherlands and Belgium will play shows in Korzo, Amare, PAARD and Het Nationale Theater. You can visit the Gnawa Festival from Thursday 7 – 10 September in venues all across The Hague’s inner city.

On Saturday 9 September you can see Lemma perform at Korzo, a collective from Saoura, a region in the south of the Algerian Sahara. As one of the group’s core founders Souad Asla has introduced various Saoura-based genres to a wider audience, without losing their sense of authenticity. Lemma consists of 7 women musicians who, in their live performances, are inspired by four musical movements from their birthplace Saoura: zaffânî, hadra, al-farda and gnawi.

Live instrumentation often plays a supporting role in Lemma’s music; the body takes center stage, using singing and hand clapping. The collective sings about both trivial and serious matters, from disappointed romance to poetry from the prophet. Lemma can roughly be translated as ‘meeting' and that’s exactly what Souad Asla and her Lemma-companions set out to do: meet each other on stages, halls and venues all around the world.