Performative Labor among Balkan Romani Wedding Musicians

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship among value, money, and the challenges of embodied, artistic, and interpersonal professional musical labor for Balkan Romani wedding musicians. Via discourse and events in North Macedonia and Bulgaria, it examines the multiple strands of exchange between performers and patrons. Four case studies show how musicians debate their art and labor and how tipping is negotiated at weddings and a youth dance. The chapter focuses on how musicians strategize their artistry to produce affective states and how this in turn procures income, impacts their personhood and status, and accomplishes social transformations in Romani communities.