Zar Trance Music – Egypt (Traditional)
A ritualized field of sonic healing and spirit negotiation, where polyrhythmic drumming, chant, and embodied vibration become agents of psychological, social, and metaphysical realignment
Thinking Through Alfred Gell (1945-1997)’s Art and Agency
Introduction
Zar is a trance healing ritual practiced in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and across parts of East Africa and the Middle East. In Egypt, it is traditionally led by women and focused on healing individuals (often women) afflicted by spirit possession (jinn or zar spirits). Zar music is centered on:
Rhythmic drumming (often multiple drums—e.g. tabl, duff, tanbur),
Chanted invocations, sometimes calling specific spirits by name,
The use of animal sacrifices, incense, and ritual objects in the broader healing rite.
From the standpoint of Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency, Zar is not simply “music” or “ceremony,” but an artwork of social and cosmological action. It is a form of distributed agency, where sound causes transformation, music channels spirits, and the human body becomes an agentive medium of healing and re-ordering.
Music as Index of Spirit and Social Realignment
Gell asserts that artworks are indexes of agency—not passive signs but traces of intentionality. In Zar:
The drumming patterns are not abstract—they index specific spirits, emotional states, or ritual stages,
The rhythm and chant trace the contours of the possessed person's inner disruption,
Each drumbeat is a gesture of negotiation, a contract between the visible and invisible worlds.
Thus, the music is not expressive—it is operative. It acts on spirits, the body, and social roles simultaneously.
Distributed Agency: Spirits, Healer, Drummers, Participant, Community
Zar fits Gell’s theory of distributed intentionality perfectly:
The possessed person is not a passive patient, but an agentive site of transformation,
The ritual leader (often female, e.g., a shikha) directs the event, selects rhythms, and channels ancestral knowledge,
The drummers serve as rhythmic engineers, summoning and modulating energies,
The spirits themselves are treated as agents—invoked, bargained with, appeased,
The community acts as witness, amplifier, and co-healer, often participating through call-and-response, clapping, and movement.
No element acts alone. The artwork exists as a circuit of agency, in which music is the interface.
Rhythm as Causal Device
Zar rhythms are polyrhythmic, circular, and escalating:
Patterns intensify in tempo and volume, leading participants into trance states (hal),
Each rhythm corresponds to a specific spirit type or emotional configuration—one for anger, another for grief, another for erotic suppression,
The repetition is not aesthetic—it is causal, magical, ritualistic.
For Gell, these rhythms act as intentional machines—they entrain bodies, loosen cognitive boundaries, and realign internal forces. They do not signify—they do.
Trance as Artistic State of Becoming
Possession in Zar is:
Not a loss of control, but a ritualized crossing into another mode of being,
A healing performance, where the body acts out the conflict, releasing it through motion, sound, and breath,
Often gendered—as women, silenced elsewhere, find voice and agency through possession and performance.
Gell would argue that trance is not a pathological state, but a temporary artwork of personhood, co-authored by performer, spirit, and sound.
Sound, Scent, and Ritual Space as Art System
Zar includes:
The burning of incense (bukhur),
The decoration of ritual space with fabrics, mirrors, or sacred objects,
The presence of food offerings or animal sacrifice.
In Gell’s terms, the artwork is not just sonic—it is multi-modal and environmental. Every component is agentive. The space becomes a field of causality, a material-spiritual stage, where each object and sound contributes to the ritual's effect.
Improvisation, Response, and Real-Time Adaptation
Zar is not rigid—it is highly responsive:
The healer watches the participant, adjusting rhythm, chant, or tempo accordingly,
Certain spirits “prefer” specific sounds, instruments, or gestures,
Music is not linear, but responsive, rhythmic weaving—changing direction as needed.
This matches Gell’s notion of real-time enacted agency—the artwork is not fixed, but unfolding through attention, choice, and feedback.
Enchantment Through Participatory Immersion
Zar’s enchantment is not passive:
The audience is involved—clapping, chanting, even entering trance,
The experience is embodied and communal—the healing does not belong to one, but to the ritual ecosystem,
The music does not entertain—it acts, altering consciousness and redefining selfhood.
This is Gell’s “technology of enchantment” not as spectacle, but as participatory realignment. One does not observe Zar—one is drawn into its action.
Conclusion
Through the lens of Alfred Gell, Zar Trance Music is a paradigmatic artwork of agency through sound. It is not representation, but transformation. The rhythms, chants, and gestures do not symbolize healing—they produce it. The music does not “express spirit”—it channels it, negotiates with it, resolves it.
In Zar, art is not a thing—it is a ritual doing, a healing engine, and a sonic field of restoration. Here, music is medicine, rhythm is invocation, and trance is aesthetic release.