IRANIAN THEATRE TAKEOVER 🇮🇷 WOMAN, LIFE, FREEDOM MOVEMENT ✌🏼EXPERIENCE CONTEMPORARY THEATRE IN TEHRAN 🎭
This week, we are diving into the history of art and theatre in Iran, how local theatre practitioners and artists reacted to the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement, and more.
Welcome back, folks.
We’re publishing early this week to reflect on the past, present, and future of theatre and art in Iran. Although there is a plethora of great contemporary art by Iranian-Americans and those in the diaspora, we wanted to focus mostly on the stories of artists and activists currently living and working in Iran, or those who plan to return one day under different political circumstances.
In the current American theatre industry, due in large part to the decades of anti-Middle Eastern/SWANA propaganda in American culture, many of us hold the racist idea that Iran is a “place worth leaving.” That’s why we want to highlight why so many Iranian artists deeply love their home and the art their communities continue to make.
🎭 EXPERIENCE IRANIAN THEATRE & ART:
▶️ WATCH: National Art Exhibition, Tehran, Iran in 2023
▶️ WATCH: See what going to the theater feels like in Iran
THE NEW REPUBLIC: "We Like Vampires Because We Hate Death"
🏳️⚧️ QUEER FUTURES:
SLEEK: 5 Iranian Artists, 5 Iranian Voices
“My goal was to change perceptions and myopic narratives of the media by sharing the complex beauty of Iranian culture… the notions of kitsch and camp found in everyday life in Iran; the striving for freedom and equality of Iranian woman and the LGBTQIA+ in Iran.”
ART21: Morehshin Allahyari re-figures histories and imagines new futures
“Looking at the history of the Qajar Dynasty [1789-1925] in Iran, it’s amazing that what we know as “queerness” today was ordinary. Intimate same-sex relationships were natural. The relationship to beauty and gender was much more fluid.”
🔮 ARTS FUTURES:
🦻🏼 LISTEN TO DJ MAG: A global mehmooni: Iranian electronic music is raising its voice around the world
AMERICAN THEATRE: Sanaz Toossi: Can We Talk?
“I think Middle Eastern actors, and brown plays, are tasked with explaining things or giving a history lesson,” said Neshat, who is also Iranian American. “It’s such a gift to not have to explain your culture, but just to be a human being and to be three-dimensional. I think the specific details make it richer, but also, there’s a lot that is universal.”
▶️ WATCH: The Hypocrisy of Hollywood, according to artist Shirin Neshat
📣 PROTEST FUTURES:
THE THEATRE TIMES: Report From The Underground: A New Iranian Theatre
KU NEWS New book explores how contemporary Iranian artists sidestep line of repression
In a time of repression, Esfandiary wrote, the very act of gathering in “jubilance has become a subversive tool to counter the state.”
HOWLROUND: Woman, Life, Freedom: Theatre and Protest in Iran
🤝GET INVOLVED:🤝
Attend the Middle East Children’s Alliance Concert for Humanitarian Relief today, Monday, June 23rd @7:30pm at the Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn.
This Tuesday, June 24th is Democratic Primary Voting for the Mayoral Race in NYC. Make sure you’re up to date on ranked choice voting and you know your poll site! (Also, check to make sure you’re a registered Democrat if you’d like to vote— Working Families Party doesn’t count!)
Go attend the Criminal Queerness Festival from National Queer Theater, performances through June 28th, and the Pridefest 2025 at the Shed through June 29th.
Queer Liberation March is looking for volunteers on June 29— Sign up here!
That’s all this week. Stay safe, see you again in July. 💗