Based on fieldwork (primarily in southern Romania), this article treats identity-construction among professional male Romani musicians, investigating in particular the discourse that they generate as they maintain their exclusive vocational niche on the boundaries of intersecting ethnic communities. Seeking to establish the influence of Romani musicians as agents in the construction of their own identity, Beissinger discusses notions that Romani musicians provide of non-Roms and other Roms (including other musicians), as well as how they portray surrounding cultural and political phenomena as expressions of their syncretic occupational and ethnic sense of self. Beissinger argues that Romani musicians are unquestionably enclosed by socially inflicted boundaries but are themselves also agents of boundary-making as they articulate connections with and distinctions from the world around them. Throughout, she draws pertinent comparisons with Romani musicians in other east European countries.
Anyone attending a traditional wedding in Romania during the communist period, such as in the 1970s or '80s, and returning to such a celebration during the 1990s or early 2000s would immediately notice that, although structurally the wedding ritual proceeds more or less the same now as before, the non-ritual music and dance that currently form part of the festivities are significantly different. Amplified instruments in many cases have replaced acoustic ones, and electronic instruments have joined and often supplanted traditional ones.Moreover, the songs now widely heard are more frequently "Balkan pop" and "Gypsy" music rather than Romanian traditional repertoire, and "Gypsy" as opposed to Romanian dance forms dominate. This article examines how and why these changes have taken place, and provides a description of a typical contemporary village wedding. Brief introductory remarks on politics in twentieth-century Romania, Romani musicians, traditional weddings, and communist-period repertoire precede my main discussion of post-communist wedding music and dance genres, including a detailed treatment of two principal forms (the "manea" and "lăutar horă"). I also include a summary ethnographic account of a village wedding that I attended in 2002 that illustrates, in particular, post-communist celebratory music and dance.
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