Musical discursions: Spectacle, experience and political economy among Egyptian performers in globalizing markets.
Zirbel, Katherine Elizabeth
1999
Abstract
What is spectacle? How does performance spectacle reflect the ethos of a locale, a region, a nation? This dissertation compares the life experiences and performance spectacles of two regionally distinct Egyptian performance communities from their respective local markets and roles within national discourses, to their spectacles on international stages. Their experiences, under neo-conservative conditions that have rendered performance culture morally suspect, speak to increasingly contentious issues of identity and memory, morality and political economy in Egypt's quickly transforming society. Since the 1970s, increasing moral and religious conservatism in Egypt has given rise to political spectacles and national debates that are concerned with authentic Egyptian culture, identity and politics. During the same period, performers from Muhammad <super>c</super>Ali Street in Cairo, compelled by diminishing local markets, have come to perform in bellydance orchestras in nightclubs catering to Gulf Arab tourists, while folkloric musicians from Luxor, in the south, perform before European world music audiences. Drawing on performance theory and cultural Marxism, I argue that, despite genre and audience differences, both groups are commoditized as exotic Egyptian spectacles by virtue of their marketed cultural, geographical and ideological displacements. Secondly, these spectacles invoke images and associations that symbolically reassert historical and continuing legacies of domination over Egypt. Third, local perspectives suggest that nightclub spectacles, which violate the neo-conservative gender ideology, provoke moral and political antagonisms in Egypt, while further ostracizing performers. Cairene performers agonize between economic necessity and the moral stigma of nightclub performances before Gulf Arab men. Women performers find this especially difficult. Their struggle to reinterpret their identity vis-a-vis work likewise elucidates the dilemmas faced by many Egyptian women concerning work, family and honor. In contrast, the all-male Luxor musicians remain relatively unscathed by local scrutiny. Historical and comparative analyses reveal a north-south dialectic, fueled circulation of pejorative regional stereotypes associated with these performance communities, which influences local interpretations of national events and the government-Islamist conflict. The combined analyses of this dialectic and of performance spectacle shed light on the political spectacle of Islamists and provide a framework for better understanding the national debates currently reshaping Egyptian culture and politics.Subjects
Egyptian Experience Globalizing Markets Musical Discursions Performers Political Economy Spectacle
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