Download or read book Iranian Performance Traditions written by William O. Beeman and published by Mazda Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These beautiful performance traditions have continued down to the present. They are aesthetically complex, subtle and uniquely reflective of Iranian culture and though enriching all Iranian cultural expression, including literature, art, architecture and film. --
Download or read book Performing Iran written by Babak Rahimi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result of collaborative research from noteworthy dramatists and scholars, this volume investigates the dynamic relationship between culture, performance and theatre in Iran. The studies gathered here examine how various forms of performances, especially theatre, have and continue to undergo change in response to shifting political and social settings from the antiquity to the present day. The analysis in this book focuses on performance practices, examining drama, texts, rituals, plays, music, cinema and drama technologies. This is done in order to show how Iran has been imagined through enactments and representations, and reproduced through these performative actions. The book uses a wider definition of the concept of 'performance', offering analysis of a wide range of phenomena, including indigenous rituals – such as the naqqali and taziyeh – and online performances by diaspora communities.
Download or read book Music of a Thousand Years written by Ann E. Lucas and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Iran’s particular system of traditional Persian art music has been long treated as the product of an ever-evolving, ancient Persian culture. In Music of a Thousand Years, Ann E. Lucas argues that this music is a modern phenomenon indelibly tied to changing notions of Iran’s national history. Rather than considering a single Persian music history, Lucas demonstrates cultural dissimilarity and discontinuity over time, bringing to light two different notions of music-making in relation to premodern and modern musical norms. An important corrective to the history of Persian music, Music of a Thousand Years is the first work to align understandings of Middle Eastern music history with current understandings of the region’s political history.
Download or read book The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi ism written by Pedram Khosronejad and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shi'i Islam has been the official religion of Iran from the Safavids (1501-1732) to the present day. The Shi'i world experience has provided a rich artistic tradition, encompassing painting, sculpture and the production of artefacts and performance, which has helped to embed Shi'i identity in Iran as part of its national narrative. In what areas of material culture has Iranian Shi'ism manifested itself through objects or buildings that are unique within the overall culture of Islam? To what extent is the art and architecture of Iran from the Safavid period onwards identifiably Shi'i? What does this say about the relationship of nation, state and faith in Iran? Here, leading experts trace the material heritage of Iranian Shi'ism within each of its political, religious and cultural dimensions.
Download or read book Domesticity and Consumer Culture in Iran written by Zahra Pamela Karimi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the transformation of home culture and domestic architecture in twentieth century Iran. While highlighting the role of architects and urban planners since the turn of the century, the book also studies the interplay between foreign influences, gender roles, consumer culture, and women's education as they intersect with taste, fashion, and interior design.
Download or read book Culture Performance and Communication in Iran written by William O. Beeman and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Iranian Classical Music written by Dr Laudan Nooshin and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interrogates musicological discourses of creativity from the perspective of critical theory and postcolonial studies, examining their ideological underpinnings and the relationships of alterity which they sustain. The repertoire which forms the book’s main focus is Iranian classical music, a tradition in which the performer plays a central creative role. Addressing a number of central issues regarding the nature of musical creativity, the author explores both the discourses through which ideas about creativity are constructed, exchanged and negotiated within this tradition, and the practices by which new music comes into being.
Download or read book The Art of Avaz and Mohammad Reza Shajarian written by Rob Simms and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Art of Avaz and Mohammad Reza Shajarian: Foundations and Contexts, by Rob Simms and Amir Koushkani, examines the traditional art of singing classical Persian poetry, as represented by its greatest living exponent. This in-depth study surveys the social and historical context of the twentieth-century tradition of avaz while placing Shajarian’s early career within this complex culture, from being a child prodigy of Qur’an recitation in Mashhad to his rise to national prominence in the 1970s. As a globetrotting celebrity who is renowned for singing medieval poetry with impeccable technique and radiant inspiration, Shajarian’s life and work provide a compelling case study for larger issues of reconciling tradition and modernity, and the crucial role of the individual in maintaining and renovating traditional art forms. Avaz is discussed in the broader context of Iranian narrative performance traditions, where the performer retells well-known scripts in a way that is appropriate to the audience and the present occasion, spinning the tale to convey a personal message. Shajarian’s career also exemplifies the huge changes that Iranian musical culture underwent in the 1960s and 70s. Finally, the study includes a detailed examination of the materials and creative processes of Shajarian’s artistic craft, including his acquisition process and training, vocal technique, selection and treatment of poetry, use of traditional musical materials, and his balance of engaging preset materials with improvisation. The Art of Avaz and Mohammad Reza Shajarian is an impressively detailed study of the music, life, and environment of the most influential musician in Iranian classical music of the past three decades.
Download or read book The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music written by Hormoz Farhat and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-08 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Hormoz Farhat has unravelled the art of the dastgah by analysing their intervallic structure, melodic patterns, modulations, and improvisations, and by examining the composed pieces which have become a part of the classical repertoire in recent times.
Download or read book Iran and the Surrounding World written by Nikki R. Keddie and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays examine Iran’s place in the world--its relations and cultural interactions with its immediate neighbors and with empires and superpowers from the beginning of the Safavid period in 1501 to the present day. The book provides important historical background on recent political and social developments in Iran and on its contemporary foreign relations. The topics explored include Iranian influence abroad on political organization, religion, literature, art, and diplomacy, as well as Iran's absorption of foreign influences in these areas. A special focus is the prevailing political culture of Iran throughout its early modern and contemporary periods. The authors combine approaches from history, political science, anthropology, international relations, and culturalstudies. Some essays address Iran’s interactions with various Arab and Turkic ethnicities in the region stretching from India to Egypt. Others examine its relations with the West during the Qajar and Pahlavi eras, women's issues, culture inside Iran during the Islamic Republic, and the Shi`ite theocracy of Iran as compared with other Muslim states.
Download or read book Iranian Culture written by Nasrin Rahimieh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout modern Iranian history, culture has served as a means of imposing unity and cohesion onto society. The Pahlavi monarchs used it to project an image of Iran as an ancient civilisation, re-emerging as an equal to Western nations, while the revolutionaries deployed it to remake the country into an Islamic nation. Just as Iranian culture has been continually re-interpreted, the representations and avocations of Iranian identity vary amongst Iranians across the world. Iranian Culture: Representation and Identity demonstrates these fissures and the incompatibilities that refuse to be written out of national culture, analysing works of literature, popular music, graphic art and film, as well as oral narratives. Using works produced before and after the 1979 revolution, created both inside and outside of Iran, this study reveals neglected complexities and contradictions in the field of Iranian cultural production. It considers how contested claims to culture, whether they originated in Iran or the Iranian diaspora, shape our understanding of this culture and what spaces they create for new articulations of it, and in doing so offers an important re-examination of our collective concept of culture. This book would be an excellent resource for students and scholars of Middle East Studies and Iranian Studies, specifically Iranian culture including film and contemporary literature and the Iranian diaspora.
Download or read book Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings written by Olga M. Davidson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterpiece of Persian Classical epic, the Shahnama or Book of Kings was composed by Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi at the beginning of the eleventh century. Because the Shahnama presents itself as a chronicle of the reigns of the shahs from the primordial founders to the Sasanian dynasty which ended in 651, scholarly attention has centered on the question of its historical accuracy. Addressing the literary as well as the historical and mythological aspects of the Shahnama, Olga M. Davidson makes this centerpiece of Iranian culture accessible to Western readers. Drawing on recent work in epic studies and oral poetics, Davidson considers analogies with Classical and medieval European narratives as she investigates the poem's social contexts. Her interpretation of the Shahnama focuses on both the figure of the poet himself and on his protagonists-the superhuman hero Rostam and the historical or historicized shahs. Exploring the Shahnama as an example of court poetry designed to glorify the idea of empire, Davidson identifies as a driving force of Ferdowsi's narrative a strong current of antagonism between king and hero. Ironically, she shows, it is the epic hero himself who poses the greatest threat to the concept of kingship that he is sworn to defend. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings will be welcomed by readers working in such fields as comparative literature, Middle Eastern Studies, folklore, literary theory, and comparative religion.
Download or read book Performing the Iranian State written by Staci Gem Scheiwiller and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2014-11-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses what it means to “perform the State,” what this action means in relation to the country of Iran and how these various performances are represented. The concept of the “State” as a modern phenomenon has had a powerful impact on the formation of the individual and collective, as well as on determining how political entities are perceived in their interactions with one another in the current global arena.
Download or read book Iranian Culture in Bahram Beyzaie s Cinema and Theatre written by Saeed Talajooy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of his artistic career in 1959, Bahram Beyzaie's oeuvre has incorporated various aspects of Iranian, Euro-American, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian performance traditions and cinema. Beyzaie's work reformulates indigenous artistic and ritual forms and cultural narratives in plays and films whose emancipatory aesthetics have influenced several generations of writers, playwrights, and filmmakers. This book examines the origins and development of what the author identifies as Beyzaie's unique sense of creativity, using an interdisciplinary method of semiotic and cultural analysis to identify its manifestations in Beyzaie's films and plays of the 1960s and 1970s. It focusses on Beyzaie's early works, such as Downpour and Uncle Moustache, and how they engage with neglected aspects of Iranian culture to challenge mainstream approaches to writing and directing plays and films. In this way, the author argues, Beyzaie's work questions notions of being and belonging, by subverting exclusionist discourses on art, politics, society, culture, self and other, personal and collective identity, gender relations, intellectuals, heroes and villains, and children.
Download or read book The Rite of Urban Passage written by Reza Masoudi and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iranian city experienced a major transformation when the Pahlavi Dynasty initiated a project of modernization in the 1920s. The Rite of Urban Passage investigates this process by focusing on the spatial dynamics of Muharram processions, a ritual that commemorates the tragic massacre of Hussein and his companions in 680 CE. In doing so, this volume offers not only an alternative approach to understanding the process of urban transformation, but also a spatial genealogy of Muharram rituals that provides a platform for developing a fresh spatial approach to ritual studies.
Download or read book Iran written by Ute Franke and published by . This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lying between deserts, mountain chains and seas, Iran developed a fascinating cultural landscape. 360 objects from the time of the first advanced civilisations during the 3rd millennium BC until the end of the Safavid Empire in the early 18th century illustrate the outstanding significance of Iran as the initiator and centre of intercultural exchange. Exquisite artworks from the Sarikhani Collection in London and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin invite visitors to embark on a journey in time through the cultural heritage of Iran. The highlights include the great pre-Islamic empires of the Achaemenids and the Sassanids, the establishment of a Persian-Islamic culture, the masterly artistic achievements of the 9th to the 13th centuries and the Golden Age of the Safavids. They are brought together as in a multifaceted kaleidoscope in the copious illustrations and provide insight into the art of the courts and the urban elites.
Download or read book Representing the Unpresentable written by Negar Mottahedah and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pioneering book, Negar Mottahedeh explores the central issues of vision and visibility in Iranian culture. She focuses on historical and literary texts to understand the use of visual culture and performance traditions in the production of the contemporary nation. Tracing the historical mediation and dissemination of ideas for national reform in the modern period of Iran, the book examines the various discourses that have constituted the image of the unpresentable “Babi” as the figure of Iran’s Other. In her exploration of gender and Iranian cinema, the author powerfully argues that this unpresentable image continues to haunt contemporary Iranian cinema’s representations of the nation. As cinema began to displace other forms of representation in Iran, Islamic culture attempted to keep the motion picture industry free from what it perceived to be the taint of foreign values and intervention. With insight and detail, Mottahedeh looks at the revealing ways in which contemporary Iranian cinema has dealt with representing an unpresentable national modernity articulated through traversals in time and space. These deeply national tropes of traversal shaped the image of the “Babi,” against which nineteenth-century Iran produced its own modernity. This highly original work, signaling a paradigmatic shift in Iranian studies and gender studies, will be an invaluable resource for scholars in cultural, Iranian, or film studies.
