The school of Imzad in Tamanrasset
The "Dassine" class
A
S one of its first actions, the Sauver l’Imzad Association established an imzad training school in Tamanrasset. This training falls within the framework of an agreement with the National Specialist Institute for Professional Training in Tamanrasset, which provides the premises and the teaching materials, and is responsible for the training of the first group, known as “the Dassine class”.
The school was inaugurated on 2 January 2004 and the courses began on 1 March 2004.
Title of the speciality: Training in the art of tradittional Imzad music.
Number of trainees up to now: 132 trainees.
Number of formed trainees: 40.
Number of tutors: 7 skilled imzad and instrument maker.
Number of Teachers: 3 professionals in the fields of Tifinagh, information technology and instrument-making.
Proposed supplementary subjects: Culture Etiquette, tourism and travel management, traditional crafts.
Training system: Teaching (qualifying, while still responding to cultural, sociological and even economic needs
Training method: training by apprenticeship. This method is considered the most appropriate, in the sense that it alternates theoretical training delivered at the Institute by suitably competent teachers, and practical training delivered by skilled artists with experience of imzad music. It is worth noting that these artists have been identified and selected in advance.
Training programme:
- Literacy, and upgrading the basic skills-level of the enrolled candidates.
- Teacher-training.
- Core training in the areas of imzad-music playing, writing and translation of poems, and construction of musical instruments.
- Initiation into research of the repertoire of traditional music of the desert, in order to get at the origins of the imzad and to prepare a bibliography of this traditional art.