The Dwayne Rodgers Roaming Residency: Essaouira, Morocco
I’m offering a place for a musician to join a week I’ve curated in Essaouira, June 23–30, 2026, centered around the Gnawa and World Music Festival.
Essaouira is considered the heart of the Gnawa tradition. For one week, it becomes a city-sized instrument.
Music spills from stages, courtyards, rooftops, alleyways, and late-night gatherings as Gnawa masters, international musicians, and seekers from around the world converge.
This opportunity is intended for a musician whose existing practice already sits in meaningful proximity to these worlds—diasporic musical traditions, improvisation, ritual music, trance traditions, spiritual jazz, the Blues, experimental folk forms, or adjacent sonic lineages—and for whom direct exposure to Gnawa traditions and the broader musical ecology of Essaouira would offer genuine artistic nourishment.
At no cost, the residency includes:
– Private accommodation within our medina riad cluster
– Priority festival access
– Shared meals
– Excursions
– Access to intimate gatherings and performances beyond the main stages, including, where the moment allows, experiences in the orbit of Gnawa ritual practice
– An intimate group of no more than 8 artists, curators, educators, and culturally engaged travelers
Airfare is not included.
Applications close June 5.
If you are a musician whose work would be deepened by this experience, send a note with:
• who you are
• what you make
• why this moment matters to you
• how your presence might deepen the experience for the group
Please include links to your work.
I know the application window is short. Your note doesn’t need to be long.
Send your note to:
afterthebluedoor@gmail.com
Please familiarize yourself with the broader experience before applying: