The Ghawazee are the outdoors public dancers of Egypt. In recent times, the word ghawazee refers to any dancers who perform at outdoor events, such as lower class weddings and religious festivals. During most of the SCA period of study and the height of the Islamic Classical period from 800 AD until about 1300 AD, the term ghawazee, which translates to "invaders of the heart", probably referred to the outdoor public dancers and singers belonging to the nawar, descendants of the Romany gypsies who migrated to rural, southern Egypt in Medieval times. Ancient musical instruments like the mijwiz and rebab, depicted on the walls of Egyptian tombs, are still played by nawar musicians. The Roman author Martial's descriptions of the "rapid and vigorous hip movements" of the Gadetani dancers of Spain resemble the unsophisticated but not uncomplicated shimmies of Khaireeya Maazin, one of the last ghawazee performing in southern (or upper) Egypt. The traditional music and movements have apparently changed very little over time.

In the past 20 years, one family of musicians and dancers in southern Egypt (the Saeed) has become quite famous. The Banaat Maazin, literally "the daughters of Maazin", have been dancing for generations, and are very well known for their performance style. They learned the dance from their mothers and grandmothers. The patriarch, Yusef Maazin, died several years ago, and now only Khairecya, the youngest of this generation of Maazin daughters, still performs. Her sisters and cousins have either married, which usually ends a dancer's career, or have retired for a variety of reasons, including a loss of employment due to pressure against dance performances exerted by resurgent fundamentalist Muslim groups. Yusef had no sons to become musicians or to manage the dancers and perpetuate the family trade. As the family's history is lost, the oral tradition of this dance style may also disappear, because the daughters refuse to bring their children up in the family profession.

In the typical fashion of Egyptian folk dance, the ghawazee routine is NOT choreographed; instead, the dancers, usually playing sagat, and musicians follow a loosely organized program of familiar music and typical dance configurations, interspersed with entertainment gimmicks, such as having a rebab laid across the dancer's chest while it is being played. Female dancers frequently mimic men's traditional dances, like the tahteeb or combat staff dance, or the horse dances, playfully dancing with a stick or cane. At weddings and festivals, the ghawazee often dance in teams, usually made up of family members. When available, they dance on raised wooden platforms or if necessary, on tables. They take turns dancing alone, in pairs, or in small groups, moving between formations. Although the dance is lively, the movements are very relaxed and both musicians and dancers pace themselves. Wedding performances may go on for six to eight hours, and the dancers will get very little rest.

A student of Middle Eastern dance since 1988, 1 have studied traditional Middle Eastern and North African folk dances with a number of nationally known instructors who have traveled to Egypt and seen authentic folk dances performed at weddings and mawalid, or religious festivals. These instructors include Barbara Siegel (Habiba), Sandra Shore (Cassandra), and Zahra Zuhair. I am also very fortunate to have seen the dance in situ. On a trip to Turkey and Egypt in 1996, while in Luxor, I attended a dance class and performance with Khairecya Maazin.

Khaireeya hired a group of four musicians for the day, consisting of two drummers playing tabla and tabl beledi, and two rebab players. Perhaps the best example of the music of rural Upper Egypt is available on cassette tape and CD, performed by the famous Saeedi musician Metqal Kanawe and his band. Instruments typical to the region include the tabla, tabl beledi, mizmar, sagat, and rebab. Khaireeya also accompanied the musicians on her sagat while she danced, playing singles, three-stroke patterns, and combinations thereof in whatever sequence she wanted. Among the ghawazee, the sagat are played improvisationally to support rhythmic phrases; they are rarely used to highlight melodic motifs. Finger cymbals are a percussion instrument, generally for self-accompaniment, and should never be worm as visual props. Ghawazee who are not proficient at playing sagat do not wear them.

Khaireeya did not formally teach steps by breaking them down, like western dance instructors do, but simply went through her moves with the music. For the most part, she used standing hip shimmies or walking hip shimmies layered over other hip movements, and occasionally added accent moves such as shoulder shimmies, small head slides, or stomps to emphasize accents in the music. The latter two movements may be remnants reflecting the distant Indian heritage of the nawar. Stomping is sometimes used at bawdier weddings to break the table on which the dancers are performing. Breaking the table and other rowdy circus tricks, such as swinging a chair in one's teeth, are meant to be outrageous and are rarely seen by western audiences, even today.

Khaireeya frequently switched her steps mid-stride to follow changes in the rhythm, and seemed confused when asked to repeat them. Like her colleagues, Khaireeya has no concept of choreography- she "just dances". This is very typical of other ghawazee as well, like the Soubati, and is in vivid contrast to the professional dancers and instructors in Cairo, many of whom have a background in classical dance, and have trained with notable Egyptian dancers and choreographers, such as Mahmoud Reda (founder and former artistic director of the Reda Troupe in Cairo) and Madam Daulet Ibrahim (former member of Egypt's National Folklore Group and choreographer for dance star Nagua Fouad). These celebrities are becoming popular as seminar instructors in the United States and Europe, as well as coaches and choreographers for the rising dance stars of five-star hotels and nightclubs in Cairo, Alexandria, Casablanca, and Tangiers. Although they are well versed in the local and regional folk styles of dance, they are creating shows for theater venues having a much more sophisticated audience, and therefore take a more modern approach. The awalem, or "learned" dancers of Egypt, and the jawhari, or "jewel" courtesans of Turkey, have held the same role during the SCA period of study (600 AD to 1600 AD), since they were also classically trained dancers, musicians, and poets, well before the development of ballet and its subsequent "pollution" of many Middle Eastern dance forms in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Historically, although many ghawazee were well known and in popular demand as performers, as nawar they were and continue to be marginal members of society. This is apparently for two reasons. In many areas of the Middle East, including Egypt, the moral character of female dancers and musicians who perform in public for mixed or male audiences is highly suspect. Many of the outdoor public dancers were (and some still are) prostitutes, and, at various times, the word ghazeeya has been synonymous with the word "whore" in Egypt. In the 16^th century during Ottoman reign, dancers were categorized with the guilds and trade unions of courtesans for income tax purposes. Also, as nawar, they are seen as outsiders by the community they live in and therefore not suitable as day-to-day acquaintances. This is illustrated by a serious insult still heard in southern Egypt: "yabn al-ghazeeya" literally meaning, "son of a ghazeeya". This does however contribute to the cultural isolation and resulting static nature of nawar society, which insulates their traditions- including the performance, styles of the ghawazee- from modem and western influences, and helps preserve them.

The garment popularly known as a "ghawazee coat" is perhaps the most famous attire worn by street performers in Egypt, thanks to European artists like Gerome. Derived from a garment that is ultimately Persian in origin, this fitted coat would have been introduced to northern or lower Egypt with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 16^th century. Although Turkish-style coats may have been seen occasionally in urban areas slightly prior to that time, it is unlikely that these garments would have influenced street dress in Upper Egypt until much later. Furthermore, most depiction's of the "ghawazee coat" showing it rolled or cut beneath the bust are from the 18^th century or later, allowing for both evolution in cut and style and for Western painters to make their own "adjustments" to context and setting. This makes the typical "ghawazee coat" "period" for only a small portion of the SCA period of study, during the end of the 16^th century. While teaching, Khaireeya wore a straight cut dress similar to that called the "l’ancient tunic" by anthropologists, often referred to as a "beledi dress" by dancers. The vest and skirt performance costume that has been favored by ghawazee during much of the 20th century- which evolved from the Turkish coat of the 18th century and was allegedly created by ancestors of the Banaat Maazin- has now been replaced with beaded and fringed dresses and belts similar to the folkloric stage costumes worn today by celebrity dancers in Cairo. In turn, those same Cairene stage costumes are derived from folk dresses covered in rows of beaded fringe that were created by the ghawazee for tourist shows in the 1950's.

In conclusion, I'd like to emphasize how quickly this style of dance is being lost. The continuous threat of violence at wedding parties by radical religious fundamentalists has all but destroyed the tradition of hiring dancers for wedding celebrations in some areas of Egypt. In some instances, the houses of families who have hired a dancer to celebrate have been literally torn down by a fervent mob. Consequently, local authorities have made professional dancing legal by permit only, and the fees and requirements to obtain a permit are inherently prohibitive. In this atmosphere, the genuine dance of the ghawazee may disappear entirely, and only those dedicated to the dance who have made the effort to learn from the ghawazee and reproduce their dance style faithfully will keep it alive elsewhere. Within the American dance community, dance ethnologists like Barbara Siegel are working to preserve the dance and present it with its original spirit as well as the original technique of the Maazin Ghawazee. A popular style of dance within the SCA, sometimes called American Tribal or Tribal Fusion, uses some of the elements of ghawazee dance, such as the improvisational nature of the performance and choreographic figures used by groups of dancers, but the movements employed do not authentically reproduce either the movements of traditional ghawazee dance, or the traditional costume of the region. For those who wish to re-create a particular traditional dance form, like the dance of the Banaat Maazin, care must be taken to maintain as much accuracy as possible. This in turn will help to prolong the existence of these historically significant dance forms, and keep them ethnically and technically distinct within the larger genre known as Middle Eastern Dance.

GLOSSARY

almah, awalem (pl.) Egyptian indoor performer, lit."learned"

bint, banaat (pl.) daughter, girl

ghazeeya, ghawazee (pl.) dancer, "invader of the heart"

jawhari Turkish courtesans and slaves, lit. "jewels"

rebab a stringed folk instrument played with a bow

mijwiz a double reed wind instrument having a drone

mizmar a reed wind instrument

mulid, mawalid (pl.) Muslim religious festival, dating from the 12th century AD

tabla a goblet-shaped drum played with the hands, often called a dournbek, lit. "drum"

tabl beledi a two sided bass drum played with sticks, lit. "countrydrum"

sagat set of four brass finger cymbals, worn on the thumb and middle finger of each hand

the Saeed southern or upper Egypt, primarily agricultural

Saeedi from Southern Egypt, lit."belonging to the Saeed"

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Leyla bint ish-Shamaal is an educated refugee from many places in the Middle East and North Africa of the 11th century AD. She married an illiterate Crusader and happily follows him from place to place, feeding him between battles and managing his correspondences and domestic affairs.

Peg (Margaret) Blader is a professional dancer with Jawaahir Dance Company and a student and teacher of Middle Eastern Dance. She's in her second year of formal Arabic Language at the University of Minnesota, where she received BS in Biology in 1990. She's traveled to Egypt and Turkey to see the sights (and the dancers), goes to lots of dance seminars to see the costumes (and the dancers), and is generally consumed with the history of the Middle East, the culture of the Middle East, the music of the Middle East (and the dancers).