In 1992 Ethiopia’s transitional government dissolved a curfew that prevented gathering at night for nearly two decades. Afterwards, new spaces for nightlife blossomed in Addis Ababa, the most prominent of these being venues for the performance of music by azmaris, a caste of traditional musicians. These new venues, called azmaribets, represented an innovation in the use of urban space, as musicians secured land rights for the first time in the city’s history. However, a generation later the azmaribet has evaporated after neoliberal forms of urban governance were enacted in service of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s vision of the “developmental state.”

This paper explores what music venues can reveal about the governance of urban space under political transition. I ask - what were the conditions of possibility for traditional music’s production in Addis Ababa between 1992-2020? With an understanding of the “everyday” as the “condition(s) stipulated for the legibility of forms, obtained by means of functions [and] inscribed within structures” (Lefebvre 1987: 9) how does the “azmaribet,” as an urban form, make tradition legible in the context of an everyday in flux? Through ethnographic inquiry with owners of these venues, I follow how azmaris reconfigured the conditions of their musical labor during this period. Particular attention to the last remaining venue, a small club named Fendika (now closed). I demonstrate how the azmaribet territorialized musical tradition amidst shifting cultural and material terrain in the city, as well as what happens when the opportunity to do so is foreclosed.

What happens when a centuries-old dance rooted in courtship and gender roles is performed in drag? This paper examines how chilena—a defining musical and choreographic tradition of Costa Chica, Mexico—becomes a tool for self-expression in queer performance. Based on fieldwork conducted in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, during the summer of 2024, this study centers on an interview with Camelia, a local drag performer who incorporates chilena into her acts. By integrating local traditions into her drag performances, including zapateado and improvisational versos, Camelia challenges normative gender roles while asserting her costeño identity.

In its folklorized and staged form, chilena has played a key role in constructing a homogenized, mestizo, and heteronormative national identity (Cuéllar 2022). Luis Tapia Maella’s critique of neoliberal multiculturalism offers a lens for understanding how folklorization grants cultural forms visibility without necessarily challenging underlying power structures. At the same time, Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de mémoire (1989) helps frame Camelia’s performances as acts that do not merely preserve cultural memory but actively reshape it. Cuéllar’s notion of queer assemblages (2022) further highlights how chilena, when performed in drag, unsettles fixed gender norms and national imaginaries.

By foregrounding a performer who creatively adapts regional music and dance, this paper contributes to discussions in ethnomusicology about the intersections of tradition, performance, and identity. Rather than being a relic of the past, chilena—especially through the performative and often subversive use of versos—serves as a space where cultural heritage and gender expression converge.

The music of Yemenite Jewry held a special place in the development of Israeli music as early as the 1930-40s, in the pre-state era. Jewish Yemenite music was perceived as directly connected to the music of the Temple. This perception gave their music a kind of "antique" or "authenticity" within the existing soundscape in those years. During the decades following the establishment of the state, Yemenite Jews were categorized as “Mizrahi”, an umbrella term used to describe Israeli Jews originated in Arab countries. Despite being seen as Mizrahi, some Yemenite singers managed to integrate into the Israeli music scene. The most successful one is the singer Ofra Haza, born in 1957 in Israel to parents who emigrated from Yemen. In my research I discuss how Haza's “Yemeniteness” evolved in her music, as she successfully moved between musical styles at the intersection of world, folk and popular music where her “Yemeniteness” played a different role according to the context of the music. Haza was trying to make it both into the Israeli mainstream which rejected Mizrahi culture at that time, and the international scene where she was valued for her oriental origin as a world singer. By examining Haza’s musical repertoire from the 1980-90, I will show how this category of “Yemenitness” was being symbolized and changed through her voice production, musical arrangements, and use of accents and ornamentations. I will also show how the categories of “Yemeniteness” and “Israeliness” coexisted and merged into each other in Haza’s music.

In Lijiang, Yunnan Province located in Southeastern China, the Voyagers’ Band—a group of second-generation Han Chinese immigrants from Xinjiang—integrates the Kazakh plucked lute dombra and Xinjiang folk traditions into the city’s vibrant multiethnic music scene. However, their innovative musical approach conflicts with Lijiang’s tourism policies, which aim to project a unified regional image. Denied official sponsorship, they perform in privately-run live houses to sustain their craft. Through ethnographic fieldwork, I explore how their Xinjiang identity shapes their creative collaboration with the local Naxi ethnic music culture, revealing the complexities of cultural fusion in a contested space.

Drawing on cosmopolitanism, affect theory, and material culture, this paper examines how the musicians craft sonic identities and foster intersubjective connections through embodied engagement with the dombra. Their daily practices—learning, listening, composing, improvising, collaborating, and crafting—reflect a deep, lived knowledge of the instrument. While their musical fusion is rooted in their interpretation and representation of Xinjiang music, I argue that it simultaneously simplifies the nuanced complexities of ethnic traditions for broader commercial appeal.

In this paper, I argue that the Voyagers and other fusion musicians reimagined the dombra as a symbol of pan-minority identity to craft a market-driven sensory experience through personal and local narratives. By creatively engaging with dombra stereotypes, they achieved commercial success by blending facets of Xinjiang minority music with modern Chinese folk-pop practice to create a music that is diverged from official cultural tourism expectations and offering an alternative musical expression.