David Serero receives the Award for Diversity at UNESCO

Opera singer, actor, and producer David Serero received the Award for Diversity at UNESCO last week in Paris.

The Award Ceremony took place in the presence of several personalities from the worlds of fashion and culture, as well as notable Diplomats. The Ceremony takes place the day after the 34th edition of the Oriental Fashion Show, created in 2004 by the Moroccan Hind Joudar, who chose the famous Carrousel du Louvre Museum during Paris Fashion Week to highlight oriental splendors through a selection of nearly 20 fashion designers.

Several fashion designers and artists of diverse nationalities were honored at UNESCO, in Paris, during the Oriental Fashion Awards on January 21st, 2020. After David Serero performed the Moroccan national anthem in honor of several Moroccan designers who were being awarded (the day before he sang at the Carrousel du Louvre Museum), Hind Joudar (founder of the Oriental Fashion Show) offered him the Award for his artistic work on Diversity. Mr. Serero received this important recognition at the hands of His Excellency Samir Addaher, Ambassador-Delegate and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco to UNESCO. During his speech, David Serero did not hesitate to thank Hind Joudar for acknowledging his artistic work and for his desire to keep bringing cultures together.

With more than 2,000 performances in his extensive career, David Serero has celebrated coexistence through his Moroccan Jewish origins. In Morocco, he has donated part of his essential Judaica art collection to the Jewish Museum of Morocco (the largest Judaica donation ever offered to a Moroccan museum). In New York, where he lives, he often promotes Morocco through performances, including at the United Nations, where he was recently a Guest of Honor and hosted and performed for the UN's World Health Day. Among the various theatrical roles he performed in New York (Cyrano, Napoleon, Lear, Shylock, Nabucco, Don Giovanni, and more), he starred as Othello, which he directed and adapted, in a Moroccan style. He performed several concerts for the benefit of orphans in Morocco. Morocco's national airline, Royal Air Maroc, has named him one of the 15 most influential Moroccans worldwide. In the book "Morocco’s Jewish Music" by Ahmed Aydoun (Editions Marsam), David Serero is presented as one of the most essential Moroccan Jewish voices in Morocco’s history. He is the producer of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, the Artistic Director and producer of the American Sephardi Music Festival, where he invites several Moroccan musicians and filmmakers, such as Lisa Azuelos (with whom he’ll later co-write, direct, and produce "Lost in the Disco"). Among his upcoming projects in Morocco, David Serero will launch the first academic opera course at the Conservatory of Casablanca to train a new generation of classical artists. He will co-write, direct, and produce a documentary with Youssef Jajili about Mohammed V and the Jews of Morocco.

During the Ceremony, Moroccan designers Samira Haddouchi, Saad Ouadrassi, Fatima-Zahra El Filali Idrissi, and Houda Serbouti received the Oriental Fashion Awards alongside renowned stylists representing different countries and different cultures, including the Egyptian Hany El Behairy, Lebanese Abed Mahfouz, Uzbek Sofia Ashur, Franco-Palestinian Hindi, Turkish Aynour Aliyeva, and Tunisian Mouna Ben Braham. Representatives of traditional Moroccan Haute Couture also shared the podium with Norah Alhumaid (Saudi Arabia), Adiba Al Mahboub (Kuwait), Uventa (Azerbaijan), Saher Akel (Palestine), Gina Frias (Malaysia), Jamal Taslaq (Palestine), Yasmina Chellali (Algeria), Nafisa Imranova (Tajikistan), and Raishma Islam (the United Kingdom/Pakistan).

"This event pays tribute to artists and their creations," said Hind Joudar, founder of this international platform dedicated to Oriental fashion and President of the Silk Road and Al Andalus Fashion Association. She was very proud of the Moroccan artists awarded during this ceremony. These artists are "persevering people who do an exceptional job of presenting their craft to the world."

UNESCO's choice to host the first edition of the Oriental Fashion Awards carries deep symbolism, especially since it is a high-profile platform for preserving heritage.

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