Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T00:07:22.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Reda Folkloric Dance Troupe and Egyptian State Support During the Nasser Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2017

Abstract

In 1958, Mahmoud Reda founded the Reda Troupe and put his interpretation of Egyptian folkloric dance on stage. This article analyzes the historical factors that allowed for the Reda Troupe's success and popularity during the Nasser period (1954–1970). Although colonial influences and problematic representational politics are evident in Reda's choreographies, his dances also showcase agency, hybridity, and artistic collaboration. The agency of both Mahmoud Reda and his troupe during the Nasser period was central to the group's artistic success and longevity.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Al-Muwaylihi, Muhammad. 2015. What ’Isa ibn Hisham Told Us: Or, A Period of Time, Volume One, edited and translated by Allen, Roger. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 1996. Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Walter. 2012. “History in Arab Media Studies: A Speculative Cultural History.” In Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field, edited by Sabry, Tarik, 3255. London: I. B. Tauris eBook Collection.Google Scholar
Beattie, Kirk J. 2015. “Nasser's Egypt: A Quest for National Power and Prosperity.” In Nation Building, State Building and Economic Development: Case Studies and Comparisons, edited by Paine, S. C. M., 132146. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bell, Bill. 2012. “Signs Taken for Wonders: An Anecdote Taken from History.” New Literary History 43 (2): 309329.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 1985. “Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree outside Delhi, May 1817.” Critical Inquiry 12 (1): 144165.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Botman, Selma. 1999. “The Liberal Age, 1923–1952.” In The Cambridge History of Egypt II. Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by Daly, Martin W., 285308. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Caute, David. 2003. The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Çelik, Zeynep. 1992. Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Croft, Clare. 2015. Dancers as Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dougherty, Roberta L. 2000. “Badi'a Masabni, Artiste and Modernist: The Egyptian Print Media's Carnival of National Identity.” In Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, edited by Armbrust, Walter, 243268. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Daly, M. W., ed. 2008. The Cambridge History of Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Denon, Vivant. 1803. Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt: In Company with Several Divisions of the French Army, during the Campaign of General Bonaparte in that Country, and Published under His Immediate Patronage. Vol 1. London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, and R. Phillips by T. Gillet.Google Scholar
Di-Capua, Yoav. 2001. “Embodiment of the Revolutionary Spirit.” History and Memory 13(1): 85113.Google Scholar
“Egypt's National Dancer Gets American King.” 1951. LIFE Magazine 31 (October 22): 17, 46.Google Scholar
El-Messiri, Sawsan. 1978. Ibn Al-Balad: A Concept of Egyptian Identity. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Ezrahi, Christina. 2012. Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Fahmy, Farida (Melda). 1987. “The Creative Development of Mahmoud Reda, A Contemporary Egyptian Choreographer.” MA thesis. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Fahmy, Farida. (Melda). 2014. “Dancing with the Millayah Laff.” Farida Fahmy: The Art of Egyptian Dance and Culture. http://www.faridafahmy.com/pdfs/MillayahFaridaFahmy.pdf Google Scholar
Franken, Marjorie A. 1998. “Farida Fahmy and the Dancer's Image in Egyptian Film.” In Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East, edited by Zuhur, Sherifa, 265282. New York: The American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Franken, Marjorie A. 2001. Daughter of Egypt: Farida Fahmy and the Reda Troupe. Glendale, CA: Armenian Reference Books Company.Google Scholar
Fraser, Kathleen. 2015. Before They Were Belly Dancers: European Accounts of Female Entertainers in Egypt, 1760–1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.Google Scholar
Gordon, Joel. 2000. “Nasser 56/Cairo 96 Reimaging Egypt's Lost Community.” In Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, edited by Armbrust, Walter, 161181. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Ranger, Terrence O.. 1992. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jankowski, James. 2000. Egypt: A Short History. Oxford, UK: One World.Google Scholar
Kassem, Maye. 2004. Egyptian Politics: The Dynamics of Authoritarian Rule. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Katrak, Ketu H. 2011. Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kent, Sahra C. 1995. “One Flower in a Bouquet: Folkloric Pioneer Farida Fahmy.” Habibi 14 (2): 25, 24–25. http://thebestofhabibi.com/vol-14-no-2-spring-1995/farida-fahmy/ (Accessed June 29, 2016).Google Scholar
Kent, Sahra C. 2015. “A Condensed Journey Through Egypt.” Presented at the Oasis North Dance Camp, Traverse City, September 19.Google Scholar
Mazid, Nergis. 2003. “Western Mimicry or Cultural Hybridity: Deconstructing Qasim Amin's ‘Colonized Voice.’” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 19 (4): 4267.Google Scholar
“Mees Gamal's Trouble Ees Clothes.” 1953. The Globe and Mail, March 2, 5.Google Scholar
Mellon, James G. 2002. “Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism and Interstate Relations in the Arab World.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 8 (4): 115.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 1988. Colonising Egypt. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nasser, Gamal Abdel. 1956. “The Address by President Gamal Abdel Nasser to More Than 20,000 Farmers at the Constitution Celebrations.” Biblioteca Alexandrina and the Gamal Abdel Nasser Foundation, January 17. http://www.nasser.org/Speeches/browser.aspx?SID=430&lang=en (accessed April 20, 2016).Google Scholar
Nieuwkerk, Karin van. 1995. ‘A Trade Like Any Other’: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Nieuwkerk, Karin van. 1998. “Changing Images and Shifting Identities: Female Performers in Egypt.” In Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East, edited by Zuhur, Sherifa, 2136. New York: The American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Nkrumah, Kwame. 1965. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.Google Scholar
Osman, Tarek. 2010. Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Prashad, Vijay. 2010. The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Prevots, Naima. 2001. Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Reda, Ali. 1962. Agazet Nos el Sana (Mid-Year Holiday). Choreographed by Reda, Mahmoud. Cairo: Motion Picture Association A. A. Fahmy & Co.Google Scholar
Reda, Ali. 1965. Gharam fi al-Karnak (Love in Karnak). Choreographed by Reda, Mahmoud. Cairo: Cairo Films.Google Scholar
Reda, Mahmoud. 2003a. “Interview with Mahmoud Reda, Part 1: The Beginning.” Interview by C. V. Dinicu. http://www.gildedserpent.com/art32/rockyredainterviewp1.htm Accessed April 18, 2016).Google Scholar
Reda, Mahmoud. 2003b. “Interview with Mahmoud Reda, Part 2 of 3: The Troupe Interview.” Interview by C. V. Dinicu. http://www.gildedserpent.com/art32/rockyredainterviewp2.htm (accessed April 18, 2016).Google Scholar
Roushdy, Noha. 2013. Femininity and Dance in Egypt: Embodiment and Meaning in al-Raqs al-Baladi. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Rosefsky Wickham, Carrie. 2005. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Shay, Anthony. 2002. Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Troutt Powell, Eve M. 2001. “Burnt-Cork Nationalism: Race and Identity in the Theater of ’Ali al-Kassar.” In Colors of Enchantment: Theater, Dance Music and the Visual Arts of the Middle East, edited by Zuhur, Sherifa, 2738. New York: The American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
Troutt Powell, Eve M. 2003. A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain, and the Mastery of the Sudan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Warsom, Albert. 1967. “Now It's Ballet for Egypt's Belly Dancers.” The Toronto Daily Star, April 8, 23.Google Scholar
Waterbury, John. 1983. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zirbel, Katherine. 2000. “Playing It Both Ways: Local Egyptian Performers between Regional Identity and International Markets.” In Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, edited by Armbrust, Walter, 120146. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar