Preparing our Moutya for Unesco listing |17 September 2015

Stakeholders involved in protecting and preserving our national heritage have taken part in a session to establish safeguard measures for our traditional Moutya dance.

This is necessary while preparing a nomination dossier for its inscription on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity.

The national heritage research and protection section (NHRPS) of the department of culture in collaboration with the Seychelles Musicians Association (SeyMas) and the National Arts Council (Nac) organised the working session yesterday morning at the International Conference Centre.

Dr Marie-Reine Hoareau, the secretary general of the Seychelles National Commission for Unesco, also attended the session which was officially launched by the principal secretary for culture Benjamine Rose.

During the opening ceremony, director general for culture Marcel Rosalie presented the stakeholders with a book on our different ICH.

In her remarks to launch the session Ms Rose said the department of culture is in the process of preparing its first nomination dossier for the possible inscription of one of our traditional dances –Moutya – on the Unesco Representative list of ICH of Humanity.

She said Seychelles has signed several Unesco conventions pertaining to culture and one of them is the 2003 Convention ICH.

“By ratifying this convention, we have made a commitment to take stock of what our country has as intangible heritage and also taken steps to ensure their protection,” she said.

Ms Rose pointed out that all concerned stakeholders and partners have been brought together to deliberate on different measures that need to be carried out in order to ensure that the Moutya is safeguarded for future generations.

“The department of culture and the government need the participation of the community to make that project possible,” she added.

Sophia Rosalie, a research officer at the NHRPS, highlighted why it is important to establish safeguard measures for the Moutya.

“We are working hard to put forward our intangible cultural heritage by raising awareness to promote the importance of protecting our cultural Moutya dance. We are working hard to realise concrete plans to safeguard it,” she said.

She added that for the project to be successful they are working closely with the community, with SeyMas, Nac and the department of culture so that they can have a better overview about the issues that are affecting the Moutya dance.

“Seychelles is committed to protecting our cultural dance to keep it alive, and promote it around the world. We need to keep it alive so that future generations can have the opportunity to also benefit from it,” Ms Rosalie stressed.