We have worked with Tangier's multifaceted Darna ("our house") association before, but largely with its service for single mothers.
Now we're pleased to host budding film makers from Théâtre Darna, its amazingly acrobatic group of (former) street kids.
We've been to their annual pageant of Tangier's history acted out through dance and music, and it's very impressive.
Now, under the direction of the effervescent Eric Valentin, the Darna theatre group is branching out into the audiovisual and putting their work on the web in their Mémoires d'Avenir ("memories of the future") project.
After shooting a segment about Tangier's roots in Greek mythology, they've turned their attention to the almost two centuries when Tangier was under Portuguese domination.
We'll see the final product later, but their formula is a combination of stills of images and documents (this is what brought them to the Legation today) combined with the narration and reenactment by the acrobats.
Since we have a good amount of material on the British presence in Tangier, which followed from the much long Portuguese period, the Darna film crew was happy.
And from our Forbes lead soldier collection, the always-popular diorama of the Battle of the Three Kings (pictured below) provides a vivid recreation of an important event in Portuguese Morocco.
Gerald Loftus
