Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen Cultural Centre

The founding centre of the Les Étoiles network

Opened in 2014 in the heart of Sidi Moumen, Les Étoiles is the first neighbourhood cultural centre created by the Ali Zaoua Foundation. Its history is closely connected to the district and to the work of filmmaker Nabil Ayouch and artist and writer Mahi Binebine. After the Casablanca attacks of 16 May 2003, Sidi Moumen was repeatedly reduced in public discussion to marginalisation, violence and isolation. The Foundation chose to answer that stigma through a permanent cultural institution rooted in the neighbourhood and designed to work with its residents.

The centre combines artistic, educational and social objectives. It gives children and young people places to practise, learn, create, speak publicly and build possible professional paths. It also helps reconnect Sidi Moumen with the wider city by bringing artists, trainers, partners and audiences into an area that was long excluded from Casablanca’s main cultural circuits.

Arts education, performance and everyday learning

Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen operates as a multidisciplinary neighbourhood venue. Its activities can include music, singing, dance, theatre, cinema and audiovisual practice, visual arts, photography, calligraphy and urban creative forms. Foreign-language classes complement the artistic programme and reinforce the centre’s educational role.

The purpose is not simply to introduce participants to a discipline. Regular workshops develop confidence, teamwork, punctuality, public speaking, technical ability and the preparation of work for an audience. Casablanca’s municipal portal describes the centre both as a place for learning the arts and stage professions and as a professional presentation space where neighbourhood talent can perform.

The venue also hosts concerts, performances, screenings, exhibitions, debates, masterclasses, artist encounters and end-of-workshop presentations. This link between training and public presentation is central to the model: participants encounter not only lessons but also rehearsal, production, technical work and direct engagement with audiences.

The Positive School and Morocco’s urban-culture scene

Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen is home to one of the Ali Zaoua Foundation’s signature programmes: the Positive School. Created in 2016 around hip-hop culture, it develops rap, beatbox, dance, DJing and graffiti. Hip-hop is treated not merely as a musical genre but as a language of creation, identity and professional development built around the values of respect, peace, love and unity.

The Positive School organises training, residencies, showcases, battles and encounters with established artists. It supports young people who want to refine their practice, understand the professions behind urban culture and turn talent into a sustainable path. In 2025, the Foundation stated that the national programme had supported more than 20,000 young talents since its launch.

The relationship between the centre and cinema became internationally visible through Nabil Ayouch’s film Casablanca Beats, released in Morocco as Haut et Fort. Several young people connected to Les Étoiles and the Positive School took part in the film, which competed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. The centre is more than a backdrop in this story: it represents the kind of place where urban youth can write, rap, dance, debate and produce their own narratives.

A cultural institution embedded in Sidi Moumen

The centre’s activity extends beyond its building. In its early years, Les Étoiles took part in projects connecting art, the environment and urban change. The Urban Gardens programme, developed with Atelier de l’Observatoire and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, brought artists and residents together around a participatory ecological garden and creative interventions addressing the use of public space.

This approach makes Les Étoiles a genuine neighbourhood third place: people attend classes, but they also meet residents from different generations, discover artists, watch performances, take part in public discussion and imagine alternative uses of the city. A 2018 study of social-innovation initiatives reported that around 400 young people from Sidi Moumen and nearby districts were regularly taking music, dance, theatre, visual-art, photography and French classes. This is a historical figure rather than a current attendance count, but it demonstrates the local scale reached by the centre.

From one neighbourhood centre to a national network

The Casablanca centre became the first branch of a network that now includes six neighbourhood cultural centres across five major Moroccan regions. The model was subsequently developed in Tangier, Agadir, Fez, Marrakesh and other territories. Each centre responds to its local context, while the wider network shares one principle: access to arts and culture is a cultural right and can support inclusion, autonomy and professional integration.

The Foundation has also developed complementary tools, including the Ali Zaoua Academy for Cultural Professions, which provides vocational training, and Digit’Ali, a cultural e-learning platform. For more music, performance and creative-industry infrastructure in Casablanca, continue with Fondation Hiba, L’Uzine and the French Institute of Casablanca.

Planning a visit, joining a workshop or proposing a partnership

The centre is located in Hay Attacharok, at the corner of Boulevard Mohamed Zefzaf in Sidi Moumen. The Foundation’s official website lists opening hours from Tuesday to Sunday, generally from 10 am to 9 pm. Workshop timetables, registration periods and public events may vary by season, so visitors should contact the team or check the centre’s social channels before travelling.

Registration, volunteering, partnership, residency and programming enquiries can be sent to the Ali Zaoua Foundation. Future events connected to the venue will appear automatically on this page when they are published in Culturama’s Casablanca cultural calendar. You can also browse other cultural places in Casablanca.