El Mastaba Project

This project aims to promote the development of a stable, tolerant, pluralistic, diverse, democratic civil society in Egypt through the arts, by supporting El Mastaba, a prizewinning Cairo-based organization devoted to Egypt’s rich folk music tradition (see attachments), and helping the organization realize its powerful social potential by building a publicly accessible digital multimedia repository. Music is never merely an end in itself. Its power can be turned towards myriad social, political, and economic functions in any society, a fact well-known to ethnomusicologists, as well as musicians themselves. Beyond profit and politics, such power may be harnessed towards general social progress. Along these lines, El Mastaba has been effectively working since 1995 to develop music as a catalyst for social change, and promotion of a stable, democratic, civil society in Egypt. Beyond preservation or dissemination, El Mastaba takes an active role towards positive social change through education, performance, and awarenessraising at the grassroots level, including activities for children as well as media production. They were already active for many years before the revolution, not just researching, recording and presenting community music genres (“folk”) in concerts and published recordings, but also revitalizing a broader “music society” that harmonizes through performance participation, by creating and sustaining a number of music groups, and especially by involving children. During the revolution itself El Mastaba’s various groups (there are 12 altogether, including groups especially for children) took on an active musical role in Tahrir Square, raising awareness about social injustice and the need for change (see http://bit.ly/snarvid, in which they are featured). Now, more than ever, with Egypt’s body politic in a molten and fragmented state, their activities are required to help advance the process of building a civil society. Their massive media archive supports and documents all that they do, and its careful preservation is essential to their mission. Through metadata documentation, permanent data archiving, and digital dissemination, we propose to establish a partnership with the University of Alberta/CCE by supporting El Mastaba on two levels, local and global: (a) assuring a stable permanent platform for El Mastaba’s precious archive, in support of their local educational and social initiatives, towards a stronger, more stable Egypt ; (b) raising awareness and concern about Egypt internationally. El Mastaba comprises a set of groups, published recordings, and an extensive archive, and is active in cultural education as well as performance. The archive, however, is at present dangerously susceptible to loss—many recordings are not backed up offsite, or at all — is inaccessible to the general public, and is incompletely documented. El Mastaba wishes to make this rich resource available to a broader public, both in Egypt and internationally. A number of new NGO arts organizations have sprung up in Egypt of late, but many appeal mainly to the educated and intellectual middle classes. El Mastaba is uniquely positioned due to their focus on performing arts, and their grassroots activism, building from rural and working classes upwards. They have enjoyed tremendous successes (with a prize from WOMEX, major grants from Ford Foundation, and other honors.) but there is now an opportunity to establish a unique partnership with the UofA, thanks to personal contacts, to help advance their goals, while involving the UofA in important international work in the Middle East. Significance to overall research program and discipline: Since 1992, my research has centered on the folk, religious, and popular music of Egypt. This project combines also two of my applied media projects: (1) documenting the crucial role of music in postrevolutionary Egypt (see http://bit.ly/snarvid); (2) “songs for sustainable development and peace”, a project centered on the role of music in social and material development, which has centered thus far on West Africa (Ghana and Liberia) in a series of audio and video media productios (see http://bit.ly/gv2hwikia). Finally, the project integrates my long experience in media technology, digital repositories and virtual exhibits (e.g. http://fwa.wikia.com/wiki/MuDoc_system , http://bit.ly/vmctm) Such applied work aligns with current thinking in ethnomusicology, as well as with the University of Alberta’s stated missions to "raise up the whole people," and encourage global citizenship