In Kuwait, women are prohibited from dancing in public; however, dancing in private spaces is allowed. As a result of government censorship, socio-cultural values, and commercial marketability examples of women dancing in Kuwaiti film and television are exceedingly rare. However, recently, Manaf Abdal’s steaming television series Mohammed Ali Road (2020) included representations of Kuwaiti women performing a zar dance. Although the scene was shown in other countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the scene was censored by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information. Following the censorship of the zar dance featured in Mohammed Ali Road, the actress, Hessa Al-Nabhan, who performed the dance, noted that while she respected the decision to censor the scene, she felt that the dance “has nothing to do with ethics or moral issues” (in Alelah Reference Alelah2020). Her father, a well-established Kuwaiti actor, Jassim Al-Nabhan, publicly expressed that the decision to censor the zar dance scene in Mohammed Ali Road was “a disappointment” and stated that, “not showing [the dance] means that we are not showing the historical events accordingly with credibility. It’s a scratch for the history” (Al-Marsd News 2020).
Very few studies have examined dance in the Arab world and even less scholarly attention has been directed to considerations of women’s dance or the role of dance on film and popular television. Moreover, Kuwaiti film has received little scholarly attention and the history and culture of dance remains largely unexplored throughout the MENA region (Bitali Reference Bitali1997). In effort to examine representations of dance in Kuwaiti film and television, this article compares one of the first representations of women performing the zar dance depicted in the 1979 film Alsamt (The Silence) with the censored zar dance scene in Mohammed Ali Road. This serves to address two identified gaps in the literature by examining screendance as a global phenomenon and directing attention to popular representations of screendance that appear in film and television (Bench Reference Bench2013). In addition, this comparative analysis serves to articulate connections between the foundational film and the more recent television representation of women’s dance to showcase how representations of the zar challenge Kuwaiti’s Islamicate identity by luring the Islamicate male gaze and destabilizing Kuwaiti control over television representations.
In an effort to analyze the significance of the zar dance in both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, I begin with a review of the limited scholarship that examines dance in Kuwait and include scholarship that explores women’s representations in Kuwaiti film and television. Borrowing from Erin Brannigan’s dancefilm theory (2011), I examine the role of the camera in framing the cine-choreography of the zar dance and argue that there are multiple gazes that serve to create ‘acceptable’ representations of women’s dance. I problematize Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze (1975) using Hamid Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) notion of the Islamicate male gaze to provide a critical analysis of the Islamicate identity of Kuwait and its impact of the framing of the male gaze throughout the changing contexts of Islamicate media. Bringing Naficy and Brannigan’s theories together in a comparative analysis of the film and television series’ representations of the zar dance, I identify several reasons the zar performance in Mohammed Ali Road was censored.
Social Historical Context of Dance in Kuwaiti Film
The history of dance traditions within Kuwaiti culture is deeply imbricated with the country’s diverse population. Situated along the Arabian Peninsula, the country is uniquely positioned as a commercial center for international trade and commerce connecting traders from central Arabia to merchants in Persia, India, and East Africa. These commercial connections introduced Kuwaitis to a wide range of religious and spiritual traditions and associated dance rituals. In Arabic, the word zara has linguistic associations with the phrase “to visit” and the zar performance “implies that when spirits desire certain things they visit an individual…. and reveal their identity to the possessed and to the master of the ceremony” (Al-Shahi Reference Al‐Shahi1984, 29-30). In many communities, the zar ritual has evolved into a form of cultural expression and social bonding, with participants coming together to dance, sing, and celebrate. Although the ritual performance of the dance shares similarities across a large range of continuous territory from North and East Africa to the Arabian peninsula and the Persian Gulf region, ceremonial performances of the zar exhibit regional differences in the movements and musical and rhythmic characteristics that influence the performance of the dance. The zar dance in Kuwait is a complex and syncretic practice that incorporates elements from various cultural and religious traditions, including Islam, African spirituality, and Persian mysticism.
Kuwait recognizes six types of zar rituals: qadri, hibshi, samri, tambura, laywa, and bahri (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 219). While the qadri, hibshi, and samri use a Middle Eastern frame drum known as the daf, the tambura, laywa, and bahri incorporate African instruments and musical expression. During et al. (Reference During, Mirabdobaghi and Safvat1991) describe the daf as a type of tambourine that originated in pre-Islamic Arabia that has since been “adopted throughout the Islamic world” (143). In the qadri zar, participants use the daf as the exclusive musical instrument, creating a lively dance by turning their bodies left and right while singing. The exciting rhythms employed in the qadri zar give rise to a dance that borders on the ecstatic (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 219). Similarly, the hibshi zar features daf, occasionally accompanied by a drum, tabl, with participants clapping to slow and staid songs (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 219). Finally, among those zar performances that utilize the daf, the samri zar combines a daf with a high-pitched hand drum known as mirwas. As a result of its popularity, performances of the samri have extended beyond ritual zar ceremonies (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 220).
Within Kuwait, the use of instruments other than daf are distinguished by their African origins and less commonly included in contemporary zar ceremonies (Urkevich Reference Urkevich2014, 52). The tambura, laywa, and bahri zar dances utilize African instruments. The tamboura originated from Nubia and was imported to the Gulf region by slaves who were brought from Africa in the late 1800s to serve wealthy merchant families in Kuwait (Alrai Media Group, 2019). The tambura zar involves six instruments, including the tambura, a stringed instrument, the manjur, a tambourine with East African origins crafted from goat hooves fastened to fabric that jangles when shaken around the waist, and four tabl positioned on each side of the tambura player. In the tambura, both men and women participate, with women donning their abaya outdoor cloaks and engaging in composed dancing at one end of the room, while men dance separately. The songs are sung in Swahili, known only to the singers, instrumentalists, and certain members of the dur. While less often utilized in Kuwaiti zar performances, the musical tradition of the tambura remains popular in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, and certain areas of Saudi Arabia (Alrai Media Group, 2019). The laywa zar has been discontinued from zar performances as sheikhas report that it is no longer requested by those who are possessed (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 221). The laywa zar involved a double-reed wind instrument called sirnay, also known as mizmar, a large tabl, and a smaller tabl, and featured songs of African origin (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 221). The bahri zar is also no longer commonly practiced. It included sirnay and a large tabl and was performed with dancers gracefully throwing sticks into the air in association with the rhythm (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988, 221). Each type of zar showcases a rich tapestry of music and dance, contributing to the diverse cultural and spiritual landscape of these rituals.
In Kuwait, the qadri, hibshi, and samri zar dances are often performed as part of a ritual intended to expel an evil spirit. The ritual performances are usually led by a person known as a ‘sheikh’ or ‘sheikha,’ who serves as a mediator between the participants and the spirits. In Kuwait the zar is a healing ritual often guided and performed by women. Zar rituals are particularly meaningful to Kuwaiti women who use them as a way of gathering together and creating a communal space. Ashkanani (Reference Ashkanani1988) finds that “zar rituals are not only curative and sacred occasions but also serve as social gatherings for the women concerned” (225). Similarly, Ahmad (Reference Ahmad2018) writes that “zar is a good example of the social bonds women built amongst themselves” (469). During the ceremony, women engage in rhythmic movements and enter trance-like states, often accompanied by music and singing. Communicating with the spirits through music and dance, the participants join in to generate energy and expel the spirits. In doing so, participants often move rhythmically, in a circular or swaying motion, as the mediator offers gifts or sacrifices to the spirits and leads the dance performance.
In Kuwait, as film became more widespread and emerged as a form of mass entertainment, state censorship laws and regulations were introduced. Any film containing intense violence, sex, kissing, black magic, nudity, or strong language is censored or prohibited from production (Al-Ajmi Reference Al-Ajmi2015). Mingant (Reference Mingant2015) notes that “the rule-of-thumb estimation is that Kuwait is the strictest country” (77). In a personal interview, Kuwaiti researcher and specialist on Arab feminist theory Alsharekh (2017) noted, in contrast from Egypt or Tunisian cinema, that “it is unacceptable for a woman to play the role of dancer.” However, the early examples of the zar performances in Alsamt and Bas Ya Bahar serve as meaningful exceptions to this convention. Bas Ya Bahar [Translated: The Cruel Sea] (1972) is set in the pre-oil era of the 1940s and features a scene that exhibits women performing the bahri dance in an effort to calm the seas and protect their husbands. Ashkanani (Reference Ashkanani1988) associates the use of the bahri with maritime navigation and pearl diving trades in which long maritime and desert journeys often took women away from their husbands. In these historical contexts, Kuwaiti women used the zar to heal their grief and to achieve some form of spiritual peace during these extended periods of separation.
While Bas Ya Bahar showcases an example of the bahri dance, the zar performances in Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road are classified as a qadri dance. For this reason, Alsamt serves as the foundational exemplar from which to compare the representation of the zar dance in Mohammed Ali Road. In an interview with Kuwaiti dancer Haifa Alfuzaie (2018), she noted that dance performances in Kuwaiti film are intended to represent the nation’s history and tradition. “The dances being represented in the films reflect the nature of the society and its culture,” adding “even if they are meant to represent the feminine side of a woman, they are modified according to the society’s point of view, not from a personal point of view.” As Mianji and Semnani (Reference Mianji and Semnani2015) write, “in Arab countries like Kuwait, it has been reported that zar attracts middle-aged and middle-class women who have become isolated through the Westernization of the society and who are looking for their familiar traditional world” (230). The recent censorship of the zar dance in Mohammed Ali Road calls for renewed attention to the camera techniques and strategies used to frame women’s dance performances in Kuwait. The camera itself, where it is placed and what it includes in the frame, as well as the cine-choreography of the scene, becomes the locus of the patriarchal gazes at play in the scene. In an effort to understand how these gazes represent women’s zar dance, I develop an interdisciplinary approach that brings together theories of dance and feminist film theory.
Bringing Feminist Theory and Dance Theory Together
The inclusion of dance theory is needed to better understand the issues of space, movement, and duration that contribute to the meanings of women’s dance performance in film and television. However, Foster (Reference Foster and Foster2009) finds that most writing in film studies fails to include dance theory. Brannigan’s (Reference Brannigan2011) dancefilm theory uses an interdisciplinary approach to direct scholarly attention to the use of gestures, the camera angle, lighting, and subject position in dance scenes included within film. Friedland (Reference Friedland2016) draws on Brannigan’s dancefilm theory and argues there is a need to pay attention to the meaning of gestures in films because they are critical to semiosis and contribute to the image, words, objects, and sounds that are integral to the production of a film. Dancefilm theory seeks to address a lack of focus on dance representations in film and encourages examinations of dance from a wider scope of arts and screen culture. For example, Card (Reference Card2013) has drawn on Brannigan’s studies of dancefilm to better understand the role of dance in anthropological examinations of Australian culture.
Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) contends that it is not the presence of gestures in a dance that establishes meaning but rather the exchange of gestures within the film and outside the frame of the camera that serve to create new meanings associated with a recorded dance performance. Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) calls the exchange between dancers’ bodies and the camera cine-choreography, examining how audiences may be encouraged to follow the lead of the female dancer and attend to the movements that punctuate the source of the dance. Describing gestural anacrusis as the ‘pre-movement zone’ she directs attention to those scenes “where a movement phrase or quality moves across frames, edit, cuts, bodies and spaces” (115). In her work, she details how strategies, such as “gestural anacrusis,” reconfigure the discursive meanings of the film and change representations of dance. Further, she draws on Deleuze’s concept of ‘faciality’ to explore the importance of close-up operations in film and describes how facial expressions are often represented in dance to contribute to narrative meaning and express emotion. Discussing the significance of the camera’s contribution to meaning, Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) identifies a strategy of “cinematic registration” whereby “techniques such as slow motion, multiple-exposure, repetition, reverse-motion, and digital postproduction techniques such as image ‘scratching’…. serve to produce new forms of choreographic practice and new modes of cine-choreography” (127). By examining cine-choreography and analyzing strategies of gestural anacrusis, faciality, and cinematic registration, scholars of film may recognize dance as a form of communication that contributes to a film’s meaning.
Where Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) directs attention to the exchange of gestures between the camera and subject as they generate meaning through movement, Mulvey (Reference Mulvey1975) argues that the narrative strategies of mainstream cinema construct the spectator as male and heterosexual, and consequently, the tendency in cinema is to depict a woman as an object of male pleasure. As a result of this male gaze, representations of women in the majority of narrative films are framed from a male point of view which represents women as passive or inactive objects. Jhally (Reference Jhally2007) has drawn on Mulvey’s work to describe how women dancing in music videos are hyper sexualized through the male gaze and objectified as decorations. However, previous scholarship has challenged the appropriation of Mulvey’s work in the context of dance. Buonaventura (Reference Buonaventura2004) argues that contextualizing dance from the perspective of the male gaze dismisses the function of dance performance as a liberatory and resistant praxis. Notably, Mulvey et al. (Reference Mulvey, Rogers and van den Oever2015) have problematized original formulations of the male gaze and acknowledged that “modes of spectatorship were always more complex than the ‘Visual Pleasure’ essay allowed” and recognized that “the ‘male gaze’ could be transgressed” (51). Examinations of the male gaze have expanded from Mulvey’s (Reference Mulvey1975) initial focus on systems of patriarchy and evolved to consider examinations of the influence the male gaze has on culture, commercialism, and religion. However, fewer critical and theoretical considerations have been directed toward examining how historical tradition, religion, and culture shape the male gaze.
In an effort to further problematize the application of Mulvey’s male gaze theory, I draw on Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) Islamicate gaze theory to detail how multiple gazes serve to reflect the male gaze in representations of Kuwaiti women’s zar dance. The multiplicity of gazes’ reflected in Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road reflect different and co-existing temporalities and Islamicate identities that are constitutive of Kuwaiti society. In contrast, Mulvey’s male gaze theory sought to understand how women were objectified by men’s sexual desires through processes of scopophilia, sadism, and spectacle. Where scopophilia represents a libidinally-charged pleasure derived from watching, sadism reflects the male desire to maintain women’s subordinate social position, and spectacle is constituted through cinematic techniques that prioritize the male perspective and treat women as objects of visual gratification. While Mulvey characterizes a gaze that is directed toward women, Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) takes up a critical consideration of the Islamic practice of averting the male gaze from women. From this perspective, rather than commodified objects of exploitation, women represent “a constitutive part of the core self of the males to whom they are related, and they must, therefore, be protected” (Naficy Reference Naficy2012, 102). For Naficy (Reference Naficy2012), there is another undertheorized process of gazing more common in Islamicate contexts that is related to considerations of masochism that explain how men “are lured and captured by their own look on unveiled women and thereby ‘humiliated’ and made ‘abject’ by women” (107). Noting the significance of this addition and distinction, Taheri observes, “the difference between the Western gaze theory, i.e., Mulvey’s theory, and the Islamicate theory of gaze is that it influences the male himself; it corrupts the weak male rather than controlling women” (6). Taking up a consideration of the Islamicate gaze in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, Mottahedeh (Reference Mottahedeh2008) explains how this process is distinctly tactile, rather than predicated on a voyeurism that wishes to fetishize the woman as other, the failure to avert the male gaze reflects men’s weakness and implicates their moral and spiritual fragility.
In my analysis, I examine how women are represented in Alsamt (1979) and Mohammed Ali Road’s (2020) zar performances. I appropriate Brannigan’s emphasis on gestural anacrusis, faciality, and cinematic registration to better understand how the Islamicate gaze depicts Kuwaiti women’s performance of the zar in each exemplar. I consider the traditional and modern cultural symbolism of the dance and focus on the elements of cine-choreography to examine the interaction between male viewers and female performers implicated in the zar dance scenes. I also consider how men’s failure to avert their gaze serves as a reason to censor the zar dance scene from Kuwaiti television. The Kuwaiti government’s long-standing censorial policies, used as a means of harmonizing the demands of rapid modernization with the expectations of a conservative Muslim population, make Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) Islamicate gaze theory especially appropriate for the analysis of women’s zar performance. Examining A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a horror film directed by an Iranian Woman, Decker (Reference Decker and Peirce2020) finds Naficy’s work uniquely helpful to “challenge this now-hegemonic style of gazing without slipping into the Hollywood ‘male gaze’” (171). However, few extensions of the male gaze theory have sought to examine non-Western examples and much of the work on the Islamicate male gaze has been focused on Iranian film and television (Nashef Reference Nashef2012).
While Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) considerations of the Islamicate gaze are rooted in the Shite religious contexts of Iran, where veiling is obligatory, in the majority Sunni contexts of Kuwait veiling is not mandated and both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road feature scenes that include women’s unveiled faces. However, beyond considerations of veiling, in the context of Kuwaiti film and television, the Islamicate gaze works to frame women’s representations of dance in ways that align with existing Kuwaiti socio-cultural values (Satti Reference Satti2013). In my analysis of the zar dance in Kuwaiti film and television, I argue that an extension of Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) emphasis on the Islamicate gaze provides a meaningful contribution to understanding the cultural and filmic specificities of zar dance representations in Kuwait. Although Brannigan and Naficy’s theories are not directly connected, they both offer insights into the way bodies are represented on screen and how those representations can be analyzed and critiqued. The inclusion of Brannigan’s theory serves to recognize how women’s dance performances contribute to a film’s meaning while the application of Naficy’s theory functions to problematize the camera’s complicity with the male gaze.
Analyzing the Zar in Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road
Given the historical significance of the zar in Kuwait and the recent appearance and censorship of the zar in Kuwaiti television, an analysis of the zar provides an important opportunity to analyze the cinematic strategies employed by the camera to create an ‘acceptable’ image of the dancing woman. Directed by Hashim Mohammed, Alsamt is one of the first Kuwaiti films that sheds light on the existence of patriarchal ideologies in Kuwait prior to the discovery of oil. Alsamt highlights the pressure put on women in Kuwaiti society to marry against their will at a young age and depicts the physical and emotional harm that accompanies such pressure. Women’s performance of the zar dance in Alsamt represents a foundational exemplar of dance representations in a conservative society that prohibits women from dancing in public. Although Alsamt was filmed decades before the television series Mohammed Ali Road, the zar dance scenes share several important similarities and include notable differences.
In both the film and the television series, the character performing the dance is a lead character named Maryam. Notably, in Islam Maryam is the only woman named in the Quran (2004) and the Surah Maryam reflects representations of motherhood and divine maternity, purity, and immaculate conception (191-95). Maryam is thought to have interceded on behalf of believers; acting as a mediatrix between humanity and god. For these reasons, Maryam serves as an exemplar for Muslim women, highlighting qualities of faith, modesty, patience, and submission to the will of god. In each exemplar of the zar dance, the performance of the ritual emerges from an effort to heal Maryam from a spiritual possession, or jinn. The performance of the zar is used to overpower and weaken the jinn who is released through the interactions between the dancing body and the surrounding space. In both examples, the rhythmic beats and melodies are believed to induce a trance-like state through repetitive and rhythmic patterns that include swaying, spinning, and undulating motions. Notably, in both examples, the camera is directed toward Maryam and the dance is performed to heal her. Both scenes also include several other women; in each, one woman serves as a healer and the others act as assistants to help release the jinn.
Beyond these similarities, the film and television series exhibit several significant differences that may reflect reasons why the latter was censored in Kuwait. The most visible difference is the cine-choreography that frames representations of the zar dance performance. In Alsamt, the camera movement reflects a gaze that refrains audiences from witnessing the dancing bodies of Maryam and the participants. To conform to conventions of Kuwaiti culture and comply with censors, the camera focuses on close up shots of Maryam’s facial expressions and eyes. In this sense, in Alsamt, the camera frame functions to avert the viewers’ gaze from her moving body. Although the scene includes a wide angle shot that shows both Maryam and the participants faces, the cine-choreography is restricted to instances of faciality and does not extend to images of the body in motion. However, in Mohammed Ali Road, the camera includes both wide angle shots and a bird’s eye camera perspective that enables viewers to witness the dancing bodies of Maryam and the participants. A comparative examination of cine-choreography in the film and television series directs attention to faciality, gestural anacrusis, and cinematic registration to consider reasons why the latter example was censored from Kuwaiti media.
In the context of Kuwaiti film and television, the Islamicate gaze works to frame representations of women’s dance. Where Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) directed attention to the cinematic practices of averting the camera’s gaze from representations of Iranian women’s faces, an extension of the Islamicate gaze in Kuwaiti contexts moves beyond a consideration of the veil. In Kuwaiti film and television a woman’s dancing body is framed or censored in effort to avoid capturing men’s attention in ways that would be considered abject or otherwise implicate their weakness and religious impropriety. Examining each exemplar, the analysis attends to the camera framing and motion to identify important elements of the Islamicate gaze that influence representations of the women’s zar dance performances. Moreover, beyond attention to the construction of the gaze reflected by the camera, the analysis takes up a consideration of the changing role of media and globalization that have impacted the media context and influenced audiences in the time since the release of the film and the airing of the television series.
The Islamicate Identity of Kuwait
Where Alsamt received a theatrical release in Kuwait and is included among the first examples of Kuwaiti film, Mohammed Ali Road aired on Kuwaiti television and is available on the Shahid streaming media platform that is available to online audiences worldwide. As Khalil and Zayani (Reference Khalil and Zayani2021) write, “streaming industries like Shahid tend to insert themselves as new entities claiming territoriality inside nation-states and across nation-states, in some cases forcing the reorganization of nation-state territoriality” (6). In Kuwait, the Ministry of Information oversees the production and distribution of all films exhibited in the nation’s cinemas. A film like Alsamt would have been screened by a committee and approved prior to its theatrical release. In the context of Mohammed Ali Road, the Ministry of Information removed the six-minute zar scene prior to its airing on Kuwaiti television. Writing about Iranian censorship, Semati (Reference Semati, Khalil, Khiabany, Gussaybess and Yesil2023) finds that “although the state has started to lose its monopoly in media narratives and production, it is using legacy media to maintain its regulatory control over the new private media services” (383). In Kuwait, where internet accessibility is less restricted, viewers quickly realized that online versions of the episode included the scene and shared links to the complete episode and missing scene through social media (Sameer Reference Sameer2020). Despite the audience’s ability to circumvent Kuwaiti censorship, it remains necessary to consider why the zar dance scene was eliminated from Kuwaiti television.
Although both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road sought to comply to the conventions of an Islamicate gaze, refraining from representing the women’s dancing bodies in ways that would arouse men’s attention and provoke experiences of shame and humiliation, Mohammed Ali Road may have directed shame toward what Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) characterizes as the “Islamicate identity” of contemporary Kuwait. An Islamicate identity refers “not directly to Islam as a religion, but to the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and Muslims” (Naficy Reference Naficy2012, 8). In the Iranian context, Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) finds that “media and cinema played important and constitutive roles” for establishing an ideology of “authenticity” that is predicated on an Islamic social, cultural, and religious order. Notably, within Kuwait, considerations of an authentically Islamic identity differ.
Kuwaitis have experienced considerable economic and technological development in the time since the release of Alsamt and the nation is now characterized by its modernity and mutually beneficial relationship with the West. However, while both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road are set in a historical era when beliefs in spiritual and mystical traditions of Islam were widely practiced, these aspects of the zar performance are forbidden in contemporary Kuwaiti society. Examining the zar practice in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, Urkevich (Reference Urkevich2014) explains that authorities “have forbidden zar parties… because of the sorcery and lack of faith they entail” (203). The audience’s ability to witness the spectacle associated with the ritual performance of the zar enables them to empathize with the emotions of the characters and experience spiritual traditions that may no longer be permitted in Islamic practice. An Islamicate gaze seeks to reinforce societal norms and establish a positive “Islamicate identity.” In the context of the zar performance in Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, audiences are provided an opportunity to witness a cultural ritual that no longer aligns with the Kuwaiti government’s desire to present itself as a modern Islamic state.
In both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, the sound of drums functions to guide a spiritual and mystical ceremony. In the zar ritual, the tambourine is used to create a rhythmic beat that is believed to help induce a trance-like state. The repetitive beat of the tambourine is thought to help the possessed person to enter into a state of altered consciousness where the jinn can communicate through them. In Alsamt, viewers do not see the assistants drumming. Instead, the beat of drums appears from behind the camera and the focus on Maryam is maintained through close up shots that establish her sadness. Alternatively, in Mohammed Ali Road, the assistants in the zar performance are shown drumming and the crescendo of the beat coincides with the climax of the ritual. In both zar exemplars analyzed, the sound of the drum indicates that the type of zar being performed may be classified as a qadri dance. Ashkanani (Reference Ashkanani1988) describes the qadri; “In this zar… Participants stand and beat on tambourines, while others clap. The dancing involves turning the body left and then right, while signing” adding, “the exciting rhythms used produce an almost ecstatic type dance” (219). The movements of the qadri are believed to overpower and weaken the jinn.
In the Islamicate gaze associated with the presence of a male camera perspective, these dance movements may lure men’s attention and signal their weakness to avert their gaze. As Ashkanani (Reference Ashkanani1988) notes, “The movement of the women, particularly in the more ecstatic qadri rhythms, are thought to be ‘caused’ by the jinn…. Such disorderly writhings and tremblings characteristic of this stage is described as the patient is ‘coming down.’” Continuing, she writes, “in the term most often used, the Jinn is being ‘satisfied’. Once ‘satisfied’ in this manner, by the zar, the jinn is placated and pacified and will then stop tormenting the patient” (222). In Alsamt, the ritual concludes with a close up shot depicting a tear rolling down Maryam’s face. However, in Mohammed Ali Road, the ritual concludes with a depiction of Maryam’s eyes turning white as they roll back into her head before she faints from the overwhelming sensation of the jinn’s release. This representation of Maryam’s sensorial experience may attracts a male gaze that experiences shame in witnessing her body’s convulsions. The gestural anacrusis associated with the escalation of the drums helps “create units of movement” that “have a beginning, a climax, and an end” (Brannigan Reference Brannigan2011, 27). The phrasing of the dance, “absorbs the anacrusis into the choreographic flow” as representations of the body become the benchmark that sets the terms for the encounter with the jinn (Brannigan Reference Brannigan2011, 126). While Alsamt uses the micro-choreography of faciality to depict the climax of the zar in a close up shot of Maryam’s tear, Mohammed Ali Road presents viewers with a version of the performance that climaxes in a full body expression of spiritual release.
The Islamicate Male Gaze
Where Mulvey characterizes the male gaze as a form of witnessing from the male perspective to objectify women as sexual objects, the Islamicate gaze serves as a form of witnessing from the male perspective to protect cultural values associated with femininity and women’s social position. For Naficy (Reference Naficy2012), the Islamicate gaze is less about exerting power over women and more about men’s efforts to avoid the humiliation that comes with deriving pleasure from gazing at women. Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) suggests that “since this pleasure is associated with shame and humiliation, it is masochistic” (32). In both zar performances, the clothing choices of Maryam and the participants serve to reflect an Islamicate gaze. In each example, the women are depicted in a space free of a male presence; yet, the clothing choices suggest the presence of men. In Alsamt, a closed door signals to audiences that the performance of the zar is occurring within a private space that functions to contain the exorcised jinn and restrict it from entering the outside world. Moreover, the closed door signals that the women are not breaking any laws or violating traditions of Kuwaiti society. In both zar performances, the women abide by the conventions of attire that are expected in the company of men and remain subjugated by the male presence implicated by an Islamicate male gaze.
Like the locked door in Alsamt, in Mohammed Ali Road the walls of the backyard garden space, known as a hawsh, help to contain the energy of the ritual, allowing the jinn to communicate more effectively with the participants. In Alsamt, the assistants are only briefly depicted and are excluded from the camera’s frame during the majority of the dance performance. Unlike Alsamt, the women serving as assistants in Mohammed Ali Road are depicted as participants throughout the zar performance. Although set in the semi-private space of the hawsh, the space is occupied only by women. However, the healers request for the participants to cover themselves indicates that the jinn is male. In zar rituals the possession of the jinn is often reflective of an opposite sex (Ashkanani Reference Ashkanani1988). In Mohammed Ali Road, Maryam’s face is covered with a white cloth and the other women faces are covered with boshiya, a traditional veil worn by women in Kuwait to cover their entire face in the presence of men. As a male force, the jinn possessing Maryam requires the women to cover themselves and abide by socio-cultural customs that serve to ensure women’s modest appearance. As the zar performance begins, the Islamicate gaze presents the women as figures participating in a ritual tradition. The ritual is shown to be “judged” and kept at a critical distance by a camera perspective that looks down on the dance. The scene is also characterized by frequent camera pans and changing angles that create the illusion that Maryam’s body is moving to the dance when in fact her movement is very limited. The camera positioning and clothing reflect the masochism of the Islamicate gaze as the women appear smaller and remind the viewers of a male perspective that attempts to avert its gaze from being lured into the impropriety associated with close attention to a woman’s body.
In the zar performances exhibited in Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, the ritual serves as a punishment for Maryam’s longing for a male lover prohibited by her family. Adopting an Islamicate gaze, the participants must abide by conventions associated with male witnessing. Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) writes, “Characteristics specific to the close-up in dancefilm include … the dance-like quality of the micro-movements that create a micro-choreography” (46). Brannigan’s emphasis on the micro-choreography directs attention to the facial expressions of Maryam which explain how these camera movements function to influence representations of the zar dance. In dancefilm, close-ups are deployed to draw in a viewer affectively and emotionally. Bordwell (Reference Bordwell and Thompson1997) details how close-up shots are used to show the viewer the facial expressions of the actor and express the character’s emotions, enabling the audience to identify with the character. In the zar performances of Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, Maryam’s emotional state is represented in close-up shots of her face. The close-up shots in Alsamt create images of localized facial motion which can serve to choreograph a specific meaning. In Mohammed Ali Road, the camera focuses on Maryam’s facial expressions and submissive behavior. A third person perspective depicts her wistful smile as a sign of deference towards the jinn. In both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, the focus on facial expressions and the use of close-up shots reflects an Islamicate male gaze that necessitates that the women performing the dance comply with the conventions required of a male presence. Given Kuwait’s strict media censorship, conformity with the Islamicate gaze is necessary to reduce the likelihood that the scenes would be prohibited. However, despite an effort to oblige Kuwaiti conventions, the zar performance in Mohammed Ali Road was censored from Kuwaiti television.
In an analysis of the Islamicate gaze used to represent the zar ritual, it is important to note that the Quran (2004) acknowledges the sexualization associated with the male gaze: “tell believing men to lower their glances and guard their private parts: that is purer for them” (222). In Alsamt, this ‘lowered gaze’ is represented by the use of close-ups that avoid depictions of Maryam’s full body during the dance performance. In Mohammed Ali Road, the lowered gaze is represented by a birds-eye camera perspective that shows the women assembling to perform the zar dance. From this elevated camera perspective, the ritual is shown to be “judged” and kept at a critical distance that looks down on the dance. In both exemplars the cinematic registration conforms with Islamicate conventions in an effort to exhibit the modesty and purity necessary to structure and shape women’s representations in MENA film and television. However, where Alsamt only briefly shows the participants involved in the zar and directs the camera attention toward Maryam’s experience, Mohammed Ali Road presents a more inclusive display of the zar party and showcases the role of the healer and participants.
In both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, the role of the healer is played by a woman. Bāghaffār (Reference Bāghaffār1994) attended several zar rituals in Saudi Arabia and observed that the role of the healer was usually performed by, “strong women who specialize in zar” (162). In Alsamt, the healer uses a pot with a hot piece of charcoal inside to burn out the jinn as the camera captures Maryam’s suffering. Alternatively, in Mohammed Ali Road the healer uses a stick to hit the floor to the beat of the drums. In Alsamt the spectacle is limited to Maryam’s experience and viewers receive only a brief glimpse of the performance, while in Mohammed Ali Road the spectacle showcases the entire ritual and exhibits the agency of the healer who serves as conductor. The cinematic registration of the choreography in Alsamt moves between long shots and closeups that serve to briefly establish the privacy of the space and constrain the viewers’ focus on Maryam. Alternatively, in Mohammed Ali Road the long shots enable viewers to see all of the participants and observe the healer’s role in performing the ritual. A close-up shot of the healer’s stick emphasizes her role as a mediator between the physical and spiritual realms and displays her power and authority to guide the ritual and release the jinn.
In this exemplar, the zar choreography is provocative and invites the audience to follow the lead of the female dancer. As witnesses to the ritual, audiences see themselves alongside the assistants in the dance as if serving to contribute to the gestural anacrusis and facilitating the climax of the eventual release of the jinn. As audiences find themselves in the position of participant, the Islamicate identity of a modern Kuwaiti state is threatened by the mystical performance. As Mottahedeh (Reference Mottahedeh2008) writes, “the act of looking collapses the distance between the subject who sees and the subject looked at” (9). Given that performances of the zar are intended to be held in private spaces, free of male viewers, the lens of the Islamicate gaze offers viewers an opportunity to witness a ritual that is no longer permissible in Kuwaiti society. In Alsamt, the focus on facial expression rather than body movement serves to constrain the choreography of the dancing body and comply with Kuwaiti censorship laws that prohibit representations of women’s bodies dancing. In a media market where representations of women are regulated to ensure that they are portrayed with modesty, Mohammed Ali Road’s depiction of Maryam’s full body quivering in resistance to the jinn’s possession may serve to attract attention to her appearance. Although the zar performance in Mohammed Ali Road was permitted in many MENA countries, in Kuwait the Islamicate gaze seeks to protect men from the religious impropriety associated with watching a woman’s body in dance. For this reason, it may be necessary to move beyond a consideration of the camera framing and reflect on the media context, the influence of globalization, and the intended audience of both the film and television series.
The Changing Contexts of Islamicate Media
While both Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road are set in the pre-oil era when variations on Islamic religious practices emphasized spiritual rituals and elements of mysticism; in contemporary Kuwait, the zar ritual is forbidden. Although the zar dance scene in Alsamt was permitted by Kuwaiti censors, the more recent performance of the zar in Mohammed Ali Road was censored from Kuwait television. As Matar (Reference Matar2007) finds, “the changing media landscape in the Arab world at the beginning of the twenty-first century is said to be creating new social and power dynamics in the region” (Matar Reference Matar2007, 513). In Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road, the zar dance and ritual are made a spectacle for the viewer and the Islamicate identity and male gaze may be directed toward the embodied practices that establish connections to Islamic spiritual traditions. Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) examines how the relation between body, movement, and camera are used to give meaning to the spectatorial experience of a dance performance. In her efforts to analyze cinematic registration, Brannigan (Reference Brannigan2011) focuses on the “the process whereby the mechanical recording apparatus, both in shooting and postproduction, renders the filmed subject” (126). Toward that end, it is necessary to consider how the technologies of film and streaming television may reach different audiences in ways that explain why the zar dance scene in Alsamt was shown in theatres while the zar dance scene in Mohammed Ali Road was censored from Kuwaiti television.
In the context of Kuwaiti film and television censorship, the spectacle of ritual performance conducted by a strong woman, may provoke dissonance within the Islamicate identity. The representation of a woman leading a religious ceremony that violates Kuwaiti religious customs may serve as a reason for the censorship of the scene. Moreover, while Alsamt was released in Kuwaiti theatres with separate seating for men and women, Mohammed Ali Road was televised to Kuwaiti homes where male audiences were able to gaze at women in privacy. Given the Islamicate gaze’s concern that “it corrupts the weak male,” the ability to witness women dancing in the private space of the home is perceived as a threat to the Islamicate identity (Taheri, Reference Taheri2023, 6). Indeed, Naficy (Reference Naficy2012) argues that as a result of men’s desire to gain pleasure from looking, their “masochistic identification seems to explain the ‘excessive’ power of women” (107). Drawing on Naficy’s (Reference Naficy2012) work, Decker (Reference Decker and Peirce2020) argues that “the woman’s gaze in Iranian cinema is much more powerful than the passive or reactive gaze of the objectified victim conceived of by Western feminist psychoanalytic film criticism” (178). She argues that, within Islamicate representations, women’s gazes are empowered by their expressivity. In Mohammed Ali Road, Maryam, the sheikha, and the assistants represent empowered women who are working together to resist the controlling forces of a male jinn through their collective dance performance.
In the context of the Kuwaiti film and television exemplars analysed herein, the emotional restraint of Maryam’s single tear in Alsamt and the full body display of Maryam’s ecstasy in Mohammed Ali Road reflect reasons why the latter was censored from television viewers. The sensitivity of the tactile nature of the Islamicate gaze described by Mottahedeh (Reference Mottahedeh2008) is enhanced in the confines of a private space that facilitates men’s unabashed attention to the full body displays of the women’s zar performance in Mohammed Ali Road. As Semati (Reference Semati, Khalil, Khiabany, Gussaybess and Yesil2023) observed when writing about Iran’s declining state media monopoly, “the state fears most …the loss of legitimacy and even of religious and moral authority” (394). Given that women in Kuwait are prohibited from dancing in public, the recent television series enabled men to gaze on women’s dancing bodies in a way that provokes dissonance with the Islamicate identity of the Kuwaiti government. Moreover, the zar dance scene in Mohammed Ali Road exhibited the facial expressions and dancing bodies of strong women performing a religious ceremony without restraint. The television series representation of the women’s bodies in dance, and Maryam’s experience of spiritual ecstasy, serves to lure ‘weak’ men’s attention in ways that implicates their ability to avert their gaze.
Conclusion
An examination of differences between Alsamt and Mohammed Ali Road served to explain the reasons why the latter example was censored from Kuwaiti media. A comparative analysis of the two scenes illustrated how the zar dance scenes contribute to women’s representations in Kuwaiti film and television. In Alsamt the camera is focused only on Maryam’s face. Although viewers can hear the sounds of the tambourine played by the assistants, there is no exhibition of her body movement and the assistants are not shown in the performance. In contrast, in Mohammed Ali Road, viewers see Maryam’s body perform the zar dance in a wider camera shot that includes the assistants using the tambourine and participating in the performance. In Alsamt low angles and close-up shots contain the expressions of Maryam’s performance of the zar and restrict the physicality and sensuality of the dance to comply with censorship conventions. Alternatively, in Mohammed Ali Road, the use of wider shots and a high angle serve to highlight the communal and ritualistic aspects of the performance in ways that confront Kuwait censors’ efforts to prevent the exhibition of women’s dance performances in public spaces. In the zar performances examined, faciality, gestural anacrusis, and cinematic registration served to analyze representations of women’s ritual zar performances and problematize the voyeuristic pleasures associated with men’s experiences of observing women’s dance through an Islamicate gaze.
Although each exemplar makes efforts to abide by the socio-cultural and religious conventions associated with Islamic traditions, the performance of the zar itself invokes forms of sorcery and mysticism that are banned in Kuwait. An analysis of the Islamicate gaze and cine-choreography associated with each exemplar identified three possible reasons why the latter exemplar was removed prior to airing on Kuwaiti television networks. First, taking up a consideration of the Islamicate identity of Kuwait, the representation of the ritual zar ceremony in Mohammed Ali Road displays Maryam’s spiritual possession in a way that does not align with the Kuwaiti government’s desire to represent itself as a modern nation. Representations of women’s zar dance are imbued with a tension that both reflects women’s traditional spiritual practices and challenges the prohibition of public dance and mystical expressions of Islam in Kuwait. Second, with attention to the cine-choreography of each scene, in Alsamt the camera movement functions to avert the gaze from women’s dancing bodies while the camera framing of Mohammed Ali Road enables men to gaze upon the dancing bodies of Maryam and the participants without restrictions. While Maryam’s emotional experience with the jinn in Alsamt was restrained to a single tear, the zar dance scene in Mohammed Ali Road climaxes with Maryam’s full body spasming until the jinn is satisfied. Beyond the conventions associated with averting the gaze, this representation of women’s potential to lure men’s gaze directly threatens men’s control over their impulses and provokes dissonance with their understandings of Islamic religious teachings that encourage them to avert their gaze.
Extending on the previous reasons, with attention to the Islamicate male gaze, a third reason the zar performance in Mohammed Ali Road was censored is related to the changing contexts of Islamicate media. In Alsamt the dance is performed in the private space of an interior home while in Mohammed Ali Road the performance is set in the semi-private space of a hawsh. Given that the zar is banned within Kuwait and women are prohibited from dancing in public, men’s ability to watch the ritual within the privacy of their own homes using streaming media constitutes a type of voyeurism that circumvents the Kuwaiti government’s control and threatens an Islamicate identity predicated on men’s ability to avert their gaze. Instead, the television series approach to showcasing the qadri dance enables men to view themselves as witnesses and participants in a zar ceremony that facilitates women’s resistance to a spiritual possession. In doing so, male viewers have an opportunity to witness the full body expressions of women dancing without the public expectation to avert their gaze. Moreover, the television series representations of strong women who are able to express themselves spiritually through dance in a semi-private space serves to circumvent Kuwaiti control over men’s practices of witnessing women’s expressions in dance that are otherwise prohibited in public spaces. Future research should continue to bring Naficy’s and Brannigan’s theories into conversation with one another to problematize women’s representations in dance performances and enhance the relationship between theories of dance, film, and feminism. Moreover, future research is needed to continue to expand theories of dance and feminism in distinctly Islamic contexts in an effort to examine screendance as a global phenomenon with distinct cultural specificities that shape representations of women’s dance.
