Historical Context: The Egyptian 1952 Revolution and Nasserism

Seeking an end to corruption and colonial complicity in the Egyptian government, Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser headed the Free Officers in their overthrow of British-backed King Farouk in Egypt's July 1952 Revolution. By 1953, the Free Officers had taken control of government offices, declared Egypt a republic, and had completely abolished the constitutional monarchy. Nasser took formal control of the State as Prime Minister in 1954, and as President in 1956. He inaugurated a period of authoritarian, secular, leftist-leaning, anti-colonial government. One of his goals was the creation and presentation of a strong, colonizer-free nation (Daly Reference Daly2008, 302; Kassem Reference Kassem2004, 50; Rosefsky Wickham Reference Rosefsky Wickham2005, 21). During these early years, Nasser's dedication to Arab socialism and non-alignment was very popular with large sections of the Egyptian public. His move to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956 and his success in the wake of the Tripartite Aggression that followed cemented him as a popular hero (Gordon Reference Gordon and Armbrust2000, 175; Jankowski Reference Jankowski2000, 143; Mellon Reference Mellon2002, 4–5; Prashad Reference Prashad2010, 41, 52). Like other newly independent nations of this period, Nasser's government took a specific interest in strengthening the image of a powerful nation-state, now free of Western control.

Nasser's Arab-socialist government sought a complete historical break with the previous constitutional monarchy and its ties to Western power. While various historical processes continued beyond the flash point of revolution in 1952, Nasser's ascent to power marked a point of sharp change in the articulation and orientation of cultural ideals (Armbrust Reference Armbrust and Sabry2012, 1). Nasser's idealization of workers and farmers, for example, represented a break from the constitutional monarchy's Western-liberal political and elitist cultural orientation (Botman Reference Botman and Daly1999, 285). The Western-oriented effendi Footnote ¹ (bureaucracy) and aristocracy were no longer venerated. Egypt's new heroes were the hard-working fellahin (peasants/farmers) and the awalad/banat al-balad (literally meaning sons/daughters of the country, a description most often applied to Egypt's urban middle and lower classes).Footnote ²

The awalad/banat al-balad were often typified as having essential qualities, which included having an independent, strong, direct nature, being jovial, and finally, being committed to tradition. The awalad/banat al-balad, in the government's post-revolution social rhetoric, were the ideal and authentic Egyptians. Nasser himself was said to be an ibn al-balad, as his origins were in Cairo's middle class (El-Messiri Reference El-Messiri1978, 5–6). Under Nasser's leadership, these groups and their essentialized characteristics were presented in arts and culture as Egypt's heart. This stress on the importance of the ibn/bint al-balad’s “spirit” was constructed in opposition to the image of the weak, corrupt, occidentophile elite and monarchy (Dougherty Reference Dougherty and Armbrust2000, 265). Awalad al-zawat (the aristocracy) and the effendi that had sought to align themselves with Western styles, language, and dress in the colonial period were now out of touch with what the State hoped to present as the new “real” Egyptian identity (El-Messiri Reference El-Messiri1978, 6). In the Nasser period, “authentic Egyptianness” was increasingly portrayed as residing in the essentialized qualities of the sons and daughters of the country.

This socialist, nationalist, anti-colonial ideology that Nasser championed would come to be termed Nasserism. Nasserism prized the people and called for a complete turning away from the monarchy. Under the new government, many streets and squares bearing connection to the monarchy were renamed. Yoav Di-Capua (Reference Di-Capua2001) notes, for example, that Fuad al-Awal Street, a street named after Fuad I of Egypt (1868–1936), became “26 Yuliu,” in reference to the date of King Farouk's abdication, July 26, 1952. The Egyptian government's new versions of coins, bills, stamps, and medals no longer carried the images of past monarchs, but instead were imprinted with the nation's new heroes: workers, farmers, and soldiers (Di-Capua Reference Di-Capua2001, 105–106). Di-Capua concludes that Nasser was skilled at mobilizing the Egyptian people through the use of this new revolutionary symbolism (Di-Capua Reference Di-Capua2001, 104). The revolution opened up a space for the representation of the newly imagined nation. The national idealization of folk culture after the 1952 revolution allowed for the success of Reda's new versions of Egyptian folk dance, which tapped into the baladi ideal.

Mahmoud Reda and the Reda Troupe

Mahmoud Reda was born into a relatively privileged family in Cairo in 1930. As a young man, he studied gymnastics and represented his nation as a gymnast at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics (M. Reda Reference Reda2003a). He loved the dance styles of Gene Kelley and Fred Astaire, as did his brother Ali Reda. After working with an Argentine folkloric dance company for a period in 1954, and witnessing the choreographies of the Soviet Moiseyev Dance Company, Mahmoud and Ali Reda were inspired to put Egyptian folkloric dance on the stage (Franken Reference Franken2001, 16; Shay Reference Shay2002, 16, 226). Mahmoud and Ali Reda founded the Reda Folkloric Dance Company in 1958, with Mahmoud taking on the role of choreographer and artistic director, and Ali the role of business, promotion, and planning director (Kent Reference Kent1995). Farida (Melda) Fahmy, Ali Reda's wife, was the Troupe's first principal female dancer. In order to begin producing his choreographies in 1958, Mahmoud Reda and some founding Troupe members toured Egypt's provinces to study local dances, and from this field work, with a focus on the rural and the baladi, established dance tableaus and theatricalized versions of various Egyptian dance styles.

Despite hard work and preparation, the new Reda Troupe struggled to mount its first theatrical production because of the common negative stereotypes that denigrated professional Egyptian dancers. While the workers, farmers, and sons and daughters of the country may have been Nasserism's new heroes, there remained an enduring entrenched social stigma against working-class entertainers and dancers. Private, nonprofessional raqs sharqi often carried no stigma, but its professional public performance was generally understood as sexually charged and shameful for the dancer.Footnote ³ While the professional performance of raqs sharqi was a beloved requirement for a variety of celebrations and venues, the professional dancer who performed it faced social marginalization (Nieuwkerk Reference Nieuwkerk1995, 180). The unspoken common assumption was that the professional female raqs sharqi performer was perhaps also a prostitute, or at the very least, a promiscuous woman. Her performances were loved but her profession was considered a mark of shame. Professional male dancers, both of raqs sharqi and other styles of dance, also faced stigmatization and were generally considered shamefully effeminate (Zirbel Reference Zirbel and Armbrust2000, 121). Furthermore, in Egypt, professional dance was widely not considered an “art” (Nieuwkerk Reference Nieuwkerk1995, 110, 129, 182–183; Roushdy Reference Roushdy2013, 7; Shay Reference Shay2002, 137–138). Professional raqs sharqi, the most common folkloric and professional form of dance across Egypt, was in the precarious position of being simultaneously loved, regulated, and reviled (Roushdy Reference Roushdy2013, 2–3).

It is unsurprising then, that theater owners assumed that the Reda Troupe's Egyptian dance performances would not be artistically respectable, and therefore, that they would be unsuitable to perform in a theatrical space. However, the Troupe refused to perform in cabarets or nightclubs (where dance was considered acceptable as a form of entertainment), because they wanted their work to be perceived as art (Kent Reference Kent1995). In order to book their first show in a theater, the Reda Troupe made the shrewd decision to categorize its performance as “theatrical.” However, after the theater owners saw the first dress rehearsals, which were filled with music and dance, they canceled the Troupe's booking (Kent Reference Kent2015). Ultimately, Farida Fahmy's father, Hassan Fahmy, organized the group's first show by booking a theater himself at Cairo University, where he worked as an engineering professor.

Success, however, was far from guaranteed. The first performance was attended by an all-male audience (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 274). The unsure audience members, who were probably expecting raqs sharqi, were instead met with large, regional, and narrative-focused choreographed numbers. These stylized group tableau dances featured both men and women wearing costuming that reflected everyday indigenous wear that had been re-fashioned to suit staged dance performance. The costumes gave no hint of the raqs sharqi bra-belt costumes of cinema stars like Samia Gamal and Taheyya Carioca. Instead, the costuming was clearly folkloric dress that drew on traditional Egyptian elements. While certain movements of raqs sharqi were present in the women's choreographic elements (hip articulation, torso articulation), they were toned down, and the focus was on group performance, and not on a female (morally questionable) soloist (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 275; Shay Reference Shay2002, 147–151). To the Troupe's relief and joy, the very next week, entire middle- and upper-class families came to the show, indicating growing support for Reda's vision of Egyptian folkloric dance (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 274). Soon after this, the Reda Troupe's performances were selling out.

Why did the audiences return? What made these dance shows acceptable, and what made them later achieve the status of Nasser's “pride and joy” (Kent Reference Kent1995, 24)? Anthony Shay (Reference Shay2002, 162) suggests an important factor was Mahmoud Reda's ability to make dance appealing to an Egypt that had been influenced by European colonialism. Many Westerners visiting Egypt during the nineteenth century condemned raqs sharqi as a sexually charged symbol of backwardness. Western-educated Egyptian intellectuals during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries began to echo European condemnation of the dance. These intellectuals agreed that raqs sharqi was backward and sinful, and as such, should not be used to represent the modern Egyptian nation; furthermore, many members of Egypt's elite came to believe that Western arts were “more advanced” than Egypt's (Mitchell Reference Mitchell1988, 33, 99; Shay Reference Shay2002, 162). Mahmoud Reda was able to achieve middle- and upper-class support and interest by presenting idealized folk dance with toned-down raqs sharqi movements that were fused with Western dance influences from Hollywood and ballet. Shay concludes that Reda's new representation of Egyptian dance was successful, in large part, because it matched colonized expectations.

Categorizing Reda's productions as primarily continuing colonial labor, however, denies him agency and power in his creative process. Shay states that Reda's “alterations and modifications [to domestic forms] have produced a pale and anemic version of the vital dance form that the interested observer can see in the field” (Shay Reference Shay2002, 149). But Reda's alteration of Egyptian dances for stage did not necessarily produce work that was anemic. For example, his decision to modify hip and torso movement in his choreographies meant they differed from domestic forms; it did not necessarily make them weak in comparison.

The hip movements in Reda's choreographies were typically large movements that were driven by stepping motions. Generally, Reda hip work would express a single drum beat, whereas a raqs sharqi dancer would often utilize hip movements to express various instruments. The dancer performing in Reda's style would also move across the floor while performing hip articulations, whereas when a dancer performed raqs sharqi, hip articulation was often expressed in a stationary position. Raqs sharqi hip articulations could be large and external like those found in Reda's work, but more often, they tended to exhibit a range of sizes and levels of energy. Intricate hip articulation that shifted dynamically and unpredictably in focus from illustrating rhythm to melody while the dancer remained stationary was largely absent in the style of the folkloric dance Reda developed. Also, raqs sharqi dancers projected many emotions and a strong sense of flirtation while completing their torso and hip work, whereas Reda's dancers generally projected joy and avoided female soloists presenting exaggerated raqs sharqi style dalaa (coquettish flirtation) while doing intricate hip and torso focused articulations.

The dances Reda produced for the stage maintained vitality by shifting the location of energy and focus. While a raqs sharqi or baladi dancer often included vibrancy and variety in the subtle movements of the torso and hips, Reda's work often incorporated energy and diversity in rapid turning and jumping patterns with subtle patterning between multiple dancers on the floor at one time. On the contrary, Reda's decision to create new indigenous dance for stage is an example of the vitality and flexibility of Egyptian dance forms.

Reda's choreographic success is not best described as a consequence of Egyptian internal colonization. His work can better be understood as the effect of a hybridization process, in which Western ideas were continually both absorbed and resisted by the individuals that made up Egyptian society. Homi Bhabha's (1985) construct of “hybridity” allows for a nuanced understanding of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized (Katrak Reference Katrak2011, 142–143). However, when combined with a historical framework, which is not present in Bhabha's original essays, the concept of hybridity provides for a more complex understanding of the relationships between these two groups (Bell Reference Bell2012).Footnote ⁴ Viewed through this combined framework, Egypt's colonization was a multidimensional process that resulted in hybrid social/cultural changes in all levels of Egyptian society, from individual bodies to the State's operations. Unique political systems and cultural production emerged that were not purely colonial or indigenous, but something in between (Bhabha Reference Bhabha1994, 5, 10). This third space—a place of transnational cultural creation—was evident in the development of the Egyptian state, and also Egypt's architecture, education systems, and economic activities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Egyptian systems increasingly intertwined with European and broader global influences during this period. British colonial officials, with whom many in the Egyptian elite cooperated (many of whom had Turkish roots or points of origin from across the Ottoman empire), shifted Egyptian political life into a mode familiar and controllable by British interests. English and French education and culture, in themselves transnational mixes, were conduits for Egyptians to access power in the colonial system, and thus, were attractive to Egypt's upper classes. Through a complex mixture of collaboration and resistance, elements of Western thought influenced the worldviews of Egyptian individuals (or were rejected by them) in a plethora of ways, fostering a hybrid cultural production. A variety of hybridized cultural productions emerged during this period that were influenced by class, gender, and other identity elements that ultimately affected how individuals chose to engage with Western ideas. This analysis will show that the Reda Troupe and Mahmoud Reda's choreographies, which drew on a variety of dance traditions within a postcolonial Egyptian context, are examples of hybridized production because each individual's worldview on dance was continuously renegotiated. Hybridity resulted from the internalization of and resistance to colonial influences. Reda's choreographic decisions in this context then, are not simply evidence of Egyptian internal colonization, but rather of a dynamic engagement in postcolonial hybridized self-representation. The historical process of hybridization and individual artistic agency were central to Reda's decision to avoid placing traditional raqs sharqi or baladi movement on stage. Colonial concerns over dance propriety and pre-existing local patriarchal anxiety about professional dance hybridized to influence, but not absolutely dictate, Reda's choreographic decisions as he crafted Egyptian folkloric dance for stage.

Egyptian paradoxical perceptions of raqs sharqi performers and performance predate Western colonial control of Egypt, further evidencing that Reda's move to avoid elements of raqs sharqi in his choreographies cannot be summed up as primarily the work of a continuing colonial project, as Shay suggests (Shay Reference Shay2002, 132–133).Footnote ⁵ Noha Roushdy (Reference Roushdy2013, 30) indicates that because of dance's low status, as early as the end of the eighteenth century (during Napoleon's occupation, while Egypt was an Ottoman province), female dance performances were subject to various local (not French) prohibitions.Footnote ⁶ Similarly, Kathleen Fraser (Reference Fraser2015, 47) concludes that in Egypt, between approximately 1760 and 1870, female dancers transgressed a variety of local culturally and religiously mandated gendered boundaries in performance (Fraser, Reference Fraser2015, 47). Fraser notes that an Egyptian “ambivalence” toward professional dancers and dance performance during this period existed because of professional dancing's problematic moral status. Egyptian absorption of Western-toned moralistic condemnation of raqs sharqi did not coalesce under colonial rule until the end of the nineteenth century, and then, colonial rule only served to reinforce already existing moral reservations about this dance's public performance. These shifting attitudes are an example of the slow colonial hybridization of patriarchal concerns about public display of female sexuality in dance (Mazid Reference Mazid2003, 55). Thus, with the introduction of Western colonial moral condemnations of raqs sharqi over the nineteenth century, the existing unease over the morality of raqs sharqi public performances was reformulated and re-entrenched.

Because of this hybridization of patriarchal concerns over raqs sharqi performance, by the end of the nineteenth century, many Egyptian intellectuals were uncomfortable with raqs sharqi as a representation of Egypt. This is because they had engaged with, or were keenly aware of, Western attitudes that viewed it as backward. Author Muhammad al-Muwaylihi (1868–1930), in his novel Hadith Isa Ibn Hisham (2015), illustrated this discomfort.Footnote ⁷ In his narrative, the main character, Isa, was upset by the performance of Egyptian dancers in the Egyptian quarter at Paris's Exposition Universelle in 1900. Isa and his friends were ashamed of the show because they believed it presented Egypt to the world as a place of sensual timelessness and moral backwardness (Al-Muwaylihi referenced in Çelik Reference Çelik1992, 46). Çelik indicates that a variety of Egyptian intellectuals in this period felt Egyptian innovation, intellectual life, and cultural production were unfairly sidelined by European interest in Egyptian dancing girls and romantic cafés (49). Orientalist attitudes meant Westerners consistently saw raqs sharqi as exotic, sexual, and ancient. In response to these attitudes, many late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egyptian intellectuals believed raqs sharqi was shameful or that it was not an appropriate choice for representing Egypt on international stages. Egyptian condemnation of raqs sharqi stemmed from a variety of places, which included both absorption of and resistance to Orientalist attitudes.

Despite professional raqs sharqi’s morally problematic position in pre-Nasserist Egypt, it was widely loved and continued to be associated with the nation on the international stage. King Farouk named star raqs sharqi dancer Samia Gamal the national dancer of Egypt in 1949 (“Egypt's National Dancer” 1951, 46). However, in postcolonial Nasserist Egypt, the extravagantly costumed raqs sharqi dancer appointed by an ex-monarch was not held up as an officially sanctioned symbol of the nation. Samia Gamal, arguably the embodiment of professional raqs sharqi at the time, conjured for many Westerners ideas of a luxurious, sensual, feminine, ancient Egypt that did not align with Nasser's vision for a modern masculine Arab-socialist state.Footnote ⁸ Under Nasser, it was the Reda Troupe that achieved state funding and support post-revolution, and raqs sharqi performers who faced new regulations. In a bid to increase the respectability of professional raqs sharqi during the 1960s, the Nasser government attempted to make Russian balletic training compulsory for dancers (this was not successful). Moreover, the government under Nasser also legislated new controls for performers’ costumes and choreography (Warsom Reference Warsom1967, 23). In 1961, legislation forbidding floor work (where a dancer performs on the floor, as opposed to while standing) and overtly sexual performance was introduced, alongside requirements for dancers to cover their midriffs in performance (Warsom Reference Warsom1967, 23). Thus, Reda's choice to distance his choreography from raqs sharqi was not because of an attitude “of Victorian British morality [that] continued under a new guise with the advent of nationalism,” as Anthony Shay argues Reference Shay2002, 135). Neither was his choreography “created under a Victorian colonialism,” as C. V. Dinicu suggests (Dinicu quoted in Shay Reference Shay2002, 149). Reda's distancing of his folkloric choreography from raqs sharqi was a response to a post-colonial political moment that prized nationalist dance representation in a society that was already entrenched in hybridized ambivalent attitudes toward raqs sharqi.

Representing the Nation

Reda's choreographies were not an ethnographic reflection of Egyptian dance as it was practiced in homes and at festivals, but they were never meant to be. Shay considers that Reda's work was an example of an “invented tradition” geared for the consumption of the upper-classes (Hobsbawm and Ranger Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger1992, quoted in Shay Reference Shay2002, 135). Specifically, he suggests that Reda, in his invention of tradition, glorified and romanticized the peasantry while also avoiding their “actual” movements to make his choreographies attractive to colonized upper middle classes “now turned nationalist” (Shay Reference Shay2002, 135–136). However, I suggest that Reda's inventions were not only made with his own class in mind, as he and the Troupe worked hard to present dance that could be attractive to audiences from a variety of class and ethnic backgrounds. Marjorie Franken (Reference Franken2001) cites and supports Farida Fahmy's argument that Mahmoud Reda was true to what the Egyptian general public considered the spirit of Egyptian folkloric dance, folkloric costuming, and folkloric music. This is despite the fact that he made use of ballet in his choreographies, and even though his folkloric movement arrangements did not always comply with ethnographic accounts of folkloric dance (Franken Reference Franken2001, 45–53). The spirit Franken and Fahmy refer to is not an eternal Egyptian essence, although many Egyptians may have seen it that way. Instead, Franken and Fahmy indicate that Reda's work was a unique product of the Egyptian modernist experience (Franken Reference Franken2001, 46–48). These choreographies were created by people who identified themselves as Egyptians, within an Egyptian context, with the goal of showcasing Egyptian traditions and life. Mahmoud Reda's Sugar Doll Tableau in the film Mid-Year Holiday (A. Reda Reference Reda and Reda1962), for example, although relating in no way to any on-the-ground folkloric Egyptian dance movement, was indeed Egyptian in its reference and homage to the traditional distribution of sugar dolls at moulid festivities (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 276). Reda's work was concerned with generating a representation of a new Egyptian cultural expression that was connected to the past, but not a replica of it. He took elements of folklore, along with elements inspired by life in Egypt, and created new Egyptian choreography for stage. In an interview in 2003, he stated, “So what I call my choreography is not folkloric. It's inspired by folkloric” (M. Reda Reference Reda2003b). For instance, Reda's development of a dance with the millayah laff (a modesty garment) as worn in the urban areas of the Delta region was not from any traditional folkloric dance; instead it drew on inspiration from Reda's personal experience of Egyptian culture. Farida Fahmy recalls: “In the earlier dances in the dance repertoire of the Reda Troupe on stage, Mahmoud Reda turned to the characters and environment that influenced him in his youth. They are his own impressions of the customs and traditions of a society he grew up in, and a culture in which he was immersed” (Fahmy Reference Fahmy2014, 3). As indicated before, Reda did not intend his work to be an accurate ethnographic portrayal of Egyptian folklore. Rather, Reda's work achieved success because he used imagery and ideas accessible to Egyptians from a variety of backgrounds and fused local dances with international forms in the service of a collective self-representation and identity construction in line with the post-revolution ibn/bint al-balad ideal.

These romantic images of the lower classes were also attractive to many of those being represented (Franken Reference Franken2001, 52–53, 104). The Reda Troupe would not have otherwise encountered such widespread success throughout Egypt. Reda and the regime that funded his work wanted a dance form that could be accepted by all Egyptians, not only by those in the upper classes. The immediate post-revolution period was a time of intense hope for many Egyptians; as Nasser addressed farmers and workers across the country, he promised increased social justice and equity that had been denied them under the colonial monarchy (Nasser Reference Nasser1956). Before the economic stagnation of the late 1960s, and the blow of Egypt's 1967 defeat, many Egyptians imagined that the Revolution would bring positive change for the previously disadvantaged (Osman Reference Osman2010, 73; Prashad Reference Prashad2010, 52; Waterbury Reference Waterbury1983, 223). Mahmoud Reda's choreographies reflected this shared feeling of hope for a joyful and strong Egypt for all Egyptians, which was connected to its cultural heritage. For instance, the choreographies in the film Agazet Nos el Sana (Mid-Year Holiday; A. Reda1962) highlight dance stemming from Egypt's lower economic classes of fellahin and various Bedouin groups, while Gharam fi-al Karnak (Love in Karnak; A. Reda Reference Reda and Reda1965) centers the traditions of Nubian, Saidi, Bedouin, and Cairene Egyptians among other groups. However, post-revolution hope was certainly not felt equally by all, as many of these minorities continued to face marginalization within Egypt during this period (Beattie Reference Beattie and Paine2015, 138).

The folkloric dance styles that Reda created were constructed through collaborative creative processes. Many of Reda's dances were predicated on research and collaboration with Egyptians throughout the country thanks to the company's intensive fieldwork (M. Reda Reference Reda2003b).Footnote ⁹ The Reda Troupe's folkloric tableaus focused on dances presented as indigenous, or as representing indigenous ideals from across the nation. In each regional tableau, dancers were richly costumed and sharply choreographed, and their dances were celebrated as equally beautiful and Egyptian, as evidenced in the films Mid-Year Holiday (1962) and Love in Karnak (1965). Marsa Matrouh, Cairo, Alexandria, and Upper Egypt were among many regions represented by the Troupe over the years. Reda and Fahmy both indicate that the dances they created were accepted by those they interacted with during fieldwork in the Egyptian countryside (Franken Reference Franken2001, 52–53, 104). Farida Fahmy's father provides anecdotal evidence that supports this. During one of the Troupe's early shows, Hassan Fahmy sat in the audience beside a group of fellahin who had also come to watch the performance. He struck up a conversation with some of the audience by saying, “this is not fellahin dance.” According to an interview with Mahmoud Reda (M. Reda Reference Reda2003b), Hassan was contradicted by fellahin audience members, who stated that the Reda Troupe's representation was their dance. Reda concluded that “they recognized themselves, although there is like ninety percent extra put on the dance” (M. Reda Reference Reda2003b). While Reda invented tradition, as Shay (Reference Shay2002, 135) notes, it also appears it was accepted as staged folklore by those represented in the dance.

The public's positive reaction to the dance performances combined with the wider global blossoming of folkloric dance companies during the Cold War helped secure the Troupe's future direct government support (and later, control), which began in 1961. The polarized international climate resulted in the growth of state support for dance as the U.S. and USSR both strove for global cultural dominance; a state that toured impressive folkloric or national dance companies could achieve global recognition of the strength of its cultural heritage. Also, concern over dance's role in fostering internal nationalism and providing strong international representation was why the Russian Soviet State funded Russian folk dance companies and the ballet during this period (Ezrahi Reference Ezrahi2012). In response, the Eisenhower administration in the United States funded and supported the presentation of American dance tours both at home and abroad in order to export an idealized image of the nation (Caute Reference Caute2003; Prevots Reference Prevots2001, 11). Clare Croft argues further in her book, Dancers as Diplomats (2015), that American dancers engaged in cultural diplomacy by reworking the meaning of “American” through dance as embodied diplomacy (Croft Reference Croft2015, 6). The Reda Troupe was one of the Egyptian state's cultural nationalist voices, and its members engaged in similar embodied diplomacy, both at home and abroad.

But the Troupe's performances did not aim or set out to champion American or Soviet ideals. Instead, it represented Egypt, and its increasingly non-aligned foreign policy. Nasser was an important figure in the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement (which had roots in the Bandung Conference of 1955, and was formed in Cairo in 1961), which was made up of primarily postcolonial states that sought to avoid aligning with either of the major Cold War blocs. These states not only avoided aligning with Soviet or Western powers, but also banded together to resist previous imperial powers’ attempts to dominate their nations through indirect means. The goals were to opt out of the global binary, to press for the democratization of the United Nations, and for worldwide nuclear disarmament (Prashad Reference Prashad2010, 101). Nasser was a major force in this movement and a consistently outspoken critic of neo-colonialism at home and abroad, both before and after the movement's official organization.Footnote ¹⁰

The Nasser regime utilized the Reda Troupe as a symbol of a strong, independent, non-aligned Egypt. During the 1960s, Nasser consistently requested the Reda Troupe to entertain foreign officials on state occasions in Egypt and sent the group on tour internationally to showcase Egyptian culture. Nasser twice decorated Mahmoud Reda and Farida Fahmy for “services rendered to the State through art” with The Order of Arts and Sciences (Kent Reference Kent1995). The State also ensured that the Troupe participated in cultural exchanges specifically with non-aligned and newly independent nations, including Indonesia, India, Kenya, and Brazil (Franken Reference Franken2001, 55–57). Through these exchanges, and by entertaining international visitors at home, the Reda Troupe both projected the Nasser regime's desired image of a strong Egypt and encouraged solidarity with other non-aligned and postcolonial nations abroad.

The Reda Troupe's performances were also used as a tool for encouraging and establishing a shared Nasserist Egyptian cultural identity. For example, Marjorie Franken (Reference Franken and Zuhur1998) notes that the film Love in Karnak (1965) articulates Nasserist cultural-nationalism in its idealization of Egyptian inter-regional connection and in its representation of the fusion between Egypt's rich history and its contemporary trajectory. The story of Love in Karnak centers on the newly formed Reda Troupe's trip to perform in the temple at Karnak by Luxor, approximately two hundred kilometers north of Aswan. Mahmoud Reda (playing himself in the film) oversees the respectable, middle-class Cairene Troupe's performance in an area of the nation associated with some of the great monuments of ancient Egyptian history, including Karnak and the Valley of the Kings (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 276). Franken argues that the film contained a clear postcolonial Nasserist message: the Troupe members had to overcome interpersonal conflicts in order to ensure the Troupe's success, just as Egyptians had to “put the cause of the new nation foremost” (Franken Reference Franken and Zuhur1998, 276).

Love in Karnak (1965) also contained a message of Egyptian national interconnection and strength through dance. For example, the tahtib piece in Love in Karnak illustrates the ideal of a modernized Egypt connected to its heritage and the ideal of the awalad al-balad for all Egyptians. Tahtib was and continues to be a regular practice in Upper Egypt.Footnote ¹¹ In the film, it is presented for stage with Reda's gymnastic and dance innovations. Anyone watching the film knows that this typically Saidi display of controlled power and traditional strength is being performed by troupe members who were middle-class young men from Cairo. This presentation of modern youth embracing traditional arts worked to further the Nasserist ideal of traditional values being upheld by a modern populace.

This ideal of Egyptian regional interconnection is also present in the film's stylized presentation of Nubian dance (originating in the region furthest south in Egypt, stretching into northern Sudan). The Reda Troupe members dance joyfully, stepping and swaying their scarves, referencing movements of Nubian origin (A. Reda Reference Reda and Reda1965). In this dance piece, the men in the Troupe have darkened their faces with makeup to mimic the darker complexion of Nubian people in Egypt.Footnote ¹² The Troupe's representation of this region and the image of a happy, problem-free relationship with the rest of Egypt was an exercise in power (Shay Reference Shay2002, 2; Trout Powell Reference Troutt Powell and Zuhur2001, 28). The goal was to encourage Egyptian cultural solidarity, but the privileged Cairene Troupe's use of blackface to represent the ideal of a united Nile Valley, and a larger united Egypt, was an action that effectively silenced and stereotyped Nubian Egyptians. The Reda Troupe's favoritism of middle- and upper-class urban performers and its analogous representation of problem-free relationships between classes and ethnicities reinforced deeply engrained patterns of racial and class discrimination in Egypt, as Shay (Reference Shay2002) rightly notes. These problematic representations of Upper Egyptians were especially appealing to the State in this period.

During the early 1960s, when Love in Karnak was being produced, and the Reda Troupe performed its Saidi and Nubian numbers, the region many Saidi and Nubian Egyptians called home was being heavily affected by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. This was a period of change and hardship for many Nubian and Saidi Egyptians, many of whom lost their lives, or were forced to relocate during the construction of the dam.Footnote ¹³ The positive representation of these groups in the film was a nationalist message that focused on Egyptian strength and solidarity with Upper Egypt. The film idealized the history and dances of Upper Egypt and asked Egyptians to put their individual needs aside for the greater good of the nation (as Franken [Reference Franken and Zuhur1998] indicated in her reading of the film). The Troupe's dance endeavors in this film aligned directly with the State's goals for the nation and region, making the Reda Troupe in this instance an effective cultural nationalist tool.

The messages of the Reda Troupe performances were also put into the service of the nation internally. Beginning in the 1960s, the Troupe directly addressed the building of the High Dam. In performances of a piece entitled The High Dam, female members of the Troupe danced in flowing patterns, representing water, and were directed by male dancers dressed as engineers. In the finale of The High Dam performance, dancers representing Egyptian farmers celebrate the Dam's ability to control the flooding of the Nile (Kent Reference Kent1995). The joy in these performances stood for the ideal to be hoped for in the wake of the dam's construction. The connection of past and present, and the idealization of the rural and lower classes in joyful dance in Love in Karnak (A. Reda Reference Reda and Reda1965) and The High Dam performances, were a reflection of the Nasserist state's goals, not a reflection of the experiences of Nubian Egyptians, who faced forced relocation and consistent marginalization in Egyptian society. Reda's style of folklore was deemed useful and respectable by the State in part because of its ability to articulate politically appealing ideals in post-revolution Egypt.