Six Moroccans to compete in Lebanon's Super Star

07/11/2007

Auditions for pan-Arab televised singing contest Super Star were held in Morocco for the first time, on November 3rd and 4th in Casablanca. Six young Moroccans were selected to travel to Beirut, to participate in the programme which will begin in January 2008.

By Imane Belhaj for Magharebia in Casablanca – 07/11/07

[Imane Belhaj] Young men and women hoped to make an impression on the Super Star jury

Six Moroccans will represent their country in the fifth Super Star competition, to be aired on Lebanon's Future TV in January 2008. The four young women and two young men were selected from among 83 hopefuls who showed up at the Holiday Inn hotel in Casablanca on November 3rd and 4th to compete in the local elimination round.

In previous years, Moroccans were required to travel to Tunisia to audition for the competition. Super Star host Majdala Khattar said Morocco has beautiful young voices and distinctive abilities that can achieve the desired level of success, as shown last year by Moroccan finalist Saàd Lemjarred. His success prompted the show's producers to come to Morocco, in order to open the door to a broader range of the country's talent.

Khattar said the six winning voices from Morocco will be added to nine already chosen in Lebanon and six in Tunisia, as well as future winners from Arab countries on the next stop of the programme, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

At the Casablanca auditions, young men dressed in the latest fashion and girls wore special make-up, hoping to make an impression as they exhibited their talents in Maghreb, Middle Eastern and Gulf singing. Many of the contestants travelled great distances to participate. Jamel, a music teacher from the city of Uezan in northern Morocco, said that he was convinced that Super Star was a contest that depended mainly on the selection of beautiful voices rather than beauty and appearance. He added that the programme will open the door for Moroccan young people to realise their dreams of stardom, as many of the talents have beautiful voices but need support and opportunities to express themselves. Ghizlane, a 23-year-old girl from Rabat, said, "I have come to take part in Super Star because I adore singing and dream of celebrity. All that I dream of is to achieve the stardom realised by many of the young people who take part in these programmes."

The announcement of the winners who will travel to Lebanon was a tense moment for the candidates. Many eyes filled with tears of disappointment as dreams were dashed, but for six young people it was a victorious moment.

Hala Khatib, media specialist for Super Star, spoke to Magharebia about the various stages of the contest. The programme will begin with 100 talents from the Maghreb and the Arab world, selected by juries in regional auditions. After this phase, the one hundred contestants will arrive in Beirut, where they will go through a second trial: a musical theatre test. Roughly 20 of the best performers will advance to the third stage, based again on the evaluations of the jury.

The third stage depends on voting from the viewing public; 10 young men and women will be selected and two runners-up will be added, for a total of twelve finalists.

In the fifth stage, participants will compete live, before a large studio audience and accompanied by a full band. Each contestant's success at this stage depends on voting, with the ultimate winner following in the footsteps of Jordan's Diana Karzon in 2003; Libya's Ayman Aatar in 2004; Saudi Arabia's Ibrahim Hakami in 2006, and Tunisia's Marwan Ali in 2007.