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over sound and movement. This dance commemorates the Gnaoua tradition, but also articulates a distinct break from that tradition. As the night progresses, the stage opens for others to fall to the sounds and enter hal. Yet, unlike an explicitly curative lila, it is common for the public at this lila to ‘dance’ to the Gnaouis’ ‘music’ as they would at a music festival. Electric amplifiers are used to ensure that the Ma’aalem’s guimbri can be heard in the overcrowded room. Older members of Abdellah’s group identify as both musicians and as Gnaouis.76 Younger adepts identify as some intermediary of the two.77 This, albeit subtle, deviation from explicitly identifying as a healer has a severe effect on this group’s hadra. Extreme outcomes of experiencing hal, including fakirism78 and the exorcism of djinn are rare, if not altogether extinct. The stage of secular institutionally sanctioned performances has pervaded the once esoteric space of religious rituals of Gnaoua music. During these increasingly theatrical lilas, a state of hadra and ‘dancing’ to the music is blurred. The majority of those in attendance at a Gnaoua lila have a similar relationship to the music as people identifying with one brotherhood but attending the lila of another. Such an attendee is less susceptible to be inhabited by the music and they can thus be entertained by the sounds and the movements of others. In the case of Abdellah El-Gourd’s Gnaoua group, however, the ritual of performed music has taken such an effect that the musicians themselves have digested an altered understanding of what their music is. When Abdellah gathers with the rest of the brotherhood in his home each
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The term Gnaoui in reference to an individual connotes that he or she facilitates the sacred Gnaoua ritual and is a healer. A male gnaoui most likely plays the guinbri or an element of percussion and a female gnaoui conducts rites of the ceremony and has a special ability to tend to those in hal. 77
In conversation with the Ma’aalem and his group surrounding an upcoming tour alongside saxophonist Archie Shepp, I posed the question as to whether they could identify what it is that they do as Gnaouis with musicians. 78
Gnaoui Ma’aalem Abdellah El-Gourd said to me in an attempt to relate himself to the Hamatcha Muqaddim Mohammed (everyone is familiar to each other from sharing a neighborhood): “They do that [practices of fakirism and self-harm in ecstatic states]. We used to but the Gnaoua don’t anymore. Because we are on stage. People come to our lilas. It’s just not that anymore.”