El Mastaba Center for Egyptian Folk Music INTRODUCTION  Egypt is rich in its different forms of music, folk songs and traditional artists who preserve the nation's memories and express sentiment and affection of people.However, this great heritage is threatened of extinction and to be forgotten.It is worth-mentioning that the efforts done by formal bodies are limited and just kept this branch within theatrical types and rhythms which are not enough to express the heart and core of our musical folk history. El Mastaba Center was founded to revive, recreate, develop and document the Egyptian folk traditional musical heritage.As an initiative by Zakaria Ibrahim and some colleagues, the Center, funded by Ford Foundation, succeeded in collecting and documenting some types of music and folk singings in the Canal area.Canal area is characterized by an extreme heroic vitality in expressing popular –resistance during the British occupation from 1882-1954 (Galaa treatment), the tria-aggression in 1956 and the Israeli occupation in Sinai from 1967-1982. The efforts made by the Center led to great success to the revival of types of songs and music of Semsemiya and Damma songs.El Tanbora troupe has well expressed this activity by presenting shows and festivals in many countries such as Canada, France, Switzerland, England, Maly, Sweden ....etc. El-Mastaba Center still makes efforts to document folk music heritage either in the Canal area or in Egypt in general with all the richness it carries and artistic expression through different historical phases.Such certain efforts in this field require a hard work to search for types of folk arts and artists in their original sites as well as the process of documentation.This role is very important as it helps to resist the current wave of commercial arts and some cultural values which weaken the link between artists and their social reality. It also resist the culture of Globalization which destroys the nation's memory and identity.In addition, there is a prevailing passive effect of media, with all absurd arts, upon the values of traditional artists, the matter which cuts the links between them and the oriental folk heritage. It is worth mentioning that the efforts of El-Mastaba Center to recreate traditional folk music never aims to block the process of interaction. On the contrary, it tries to open the way before this interaction which denies molding and stereotyping artistic creativity. From our point of view, the cultural interaction has to be between creative arts and not that of strange or imported ones. It is also openness towards the artistic folk creativity and not distortion. Accordingly, El-Mastaba Center works to:

1. Re-create and revive traditional music in different areas in Egypt.
2. Document an archive about Egyptian traditional songs, music and musical instruments.
3. Develop traditional music from the side of performance, forms of instruments and their artistic abilities. In addition to developing the musicians themselves as individuals or groups.
4. Marketing and publicizing these outputs of traditional arts to listeners, viewers and the public.
5. Organizing performances by popular groups, in order to broadcast their creative achievements and to bring them into contact with one another.
6. Assistance with the creation of a network of popular artists (individuals and groups).
7. The publication of printed materials dealing with this music and enriching the discussion around it.
8. The organization of conferences and seminars on popular music.
9. Holding workshops to teach popular music in its own settings to preserve it from extinction.  

The Center is technically and artistically equipped to receive researchers and others interested in popular music and to provide audiovisual materials on a number of popular groups, including artists from Port Said (El Tanbura), Ismailiyya (El Sohbagiyya, El Rango), El Matariyya, Daqahliyya Governorate (El Baramka), and Suez (El Hinna).  The Center also possesses audiovisual material on the zar. And we are going to continue our efforts in this field.