Mohamed Ezz

Zar

Zar is a community healing ritual of drumming and dancing whose tradition is carried mainly by women (men have the secondary roles) and whose main participants are women.
The Zar is said to have originated in East Africa and, although its practice is disappearing in Egypt, the ritual flourishes in other parts of East Africa and in the Arabian Peninsula.
The ritual has been misperceived as a form of exorcism. However, the aim of Zar is to harmonies the inner lives of the participants.
As well as drawing women who are seriously ill, the Zar is a space in which women can work out the tensions and frustrations of social constraints which limit their movements, their dress, their voices and even their dreams.
Communication with unseen spirits is driven by the insistent and varied drum rhythms and by the energetic movements of the participants in an intense rhythmic interaction which can lead to an altered state of consciousness and, even, trance.
The experience can be cathartic, a physical and spiritual purification that leaves one calm and ready to face the world again.
reference : egyptmusic
photos was taken in the "Egyptian Center for Culture and Art".

Zar series in AFRICAM exhibition in Italy