History of Persian Dance:
Fortunately, Iranchamber.com has already written up a broad overview of the History
of Persian Dance Apparently, "Iran can be considered as one of the ancient world's empires,
which methodically and actively was devoted
to the development of the art of dance.
For this ancient nation, dancing has
been an important social phenomenon and a religious
ritual."
Iranian Horse Dance Revival
The above Iranchamber article includes the gem: "For acquainting their horses with the tumultous scenes of war, the Persians used
to execute a 'military dance', which
meant [...] in a collective arrangement,
clashing the weapons together rhythmically
and dancing with their horses."
 Wow. Do Persians even ride
horses anymore? Perhaps in rural areas. I don't hear
too much about rich Persian kids and their stables and
polo matches nowadays. I've seen a lot of horses in Persian
dramas on TV in Iran. But I must
say, I haven't seen horse-dancing in preparation for
battle in a movie yet, but it would be so cool. It's
clearly time for a revival of this
dance form. Also a great time to exploit the
"Spaghetti Near Eastern" genre (as opposed to "Spaghetti Westerns".)
There is no end to the ways in which
history can be exploited. And exploit it we must.
That's what it's there for. Public domain resources
for everyone to visit again and again, being "true" to
the sources, or being "revisionist".
If only
I wasn't afraid of horses.
I guess some people are
more afraid of dancing
than horses. Probably
because horses don't
come up as much.
Role of Taarof in Dance
The afore-mentioned Iranchamber.com article continues on on its way and finds itself lamenting the state of dance in Iran
today. Islamic rule,
it feels, has had
a dampening effect
on dance. However,
the article does
note that other Islamic
countries are less
conservative about
dance than Iran
is. This difference
is attributed, among
other things, to
the particular shaming
of Iranians through
the enslavement of
their women during
the time of Harun
Al-Rashid. Allegedly, he had
a court with 3000
dancers and musicians,
many of them Iranian. Apparently
Iran was nationally
humiliated to have
it's youth dance
in this court and
we haven't gotten over
it in all
theses centuries. Yes, this is the first I've heard of it as well.
In contrast to this theory, Robyn Friend in her article
"Status and Preservation of Iranian Dance:
Cultural Factors Influencing
the Iranian Attitude Concerning
Dance pins the blame on a culture of "Taarof." Apparently, taarof/protocol/ettiquette
dictates that women
resist dancing, saying they don't know how, etc. until cajoled, begged or otherwise
forced onto the dance floor,
at which point they reveal what dancing divas they are. In fact a major hit song is based on this
premise: "Chera Nemiraghsi" ("Why don't you dance?") by Viguen. Buy it now!
What is the Best Music to Dance To?
Well, I don't really know. You should ask some DJ. Or try browsing through the links on the music page.
A True Story About a Dance Duel Between the Family of the Bride and Groom.
One of my many cousin was getting married. The night before the wedding, the
groom's parents invited all the immediate
family members to a get-together
at their house. The relatives gathered and there was much rejoicing.
There was also much dancing which
was dominated by the bride's side
of the family, stunning, fun-loving dancers
all, inspiring to behold.
As the evening wore on (I didn't get any sleep that
weekend) there was a lull in the
dancing.
The living room floor had cleared, and I think the music had even been turned off.
I found myself standing there in the middle alone, swaying to some
remembered tune. Suddenly, I become aware of these four middle aged women - groom's
family - aunts?
sitting on the couch, talking animatedly to each other and looking at me. One
of them said something in my general direction which I couldn't quite believe.
I assumed I had heard wrong. I went up to them and said "excuse me?"
So she repeated it. It was something like this: "Go ahead. Keep dancing miss thing. We've been letting
the brides
side tire themselves out tonight. Tomorrow, the Groom's family will show you how dancing is really
done."
I was shocked and stunned for a moment. This was certainly not your standard
taarof behavior! And then the challenge
hit me. The groom's family saying
they could out dance us! So I
said, "Oh yeah? Bring it on!" And the ladies fell into fits of laughter. Were
they mocking
us?!
I waved over the bride's brothers and said, "Can you believe, these
ladies say they're tiring the bride's
side out tonight and will out-dance
us tomorrow."
"Tired out?" said one brother, "We haven't even begun to warm up."
Taunts, insults, gesticulation
and posturing ensued. I'm thinking,
great. The eve of the wedding and
we're launching a dance feud.
The groom's aunts persisted. "Be afraid, be
very afraid," they said. "We'll be
ready for you. We'll put on our
knee braces and corsets and super
support hose and industrial dance
bras (OK, maybe they didn't say "industrial dance bras." In the heat of it
all I don't remember) and you'll never know what hit
you." Yes, these ladies were cracking themselves up. Laughing.
I spent some moments that evening rethinking my dress. Was it danceworthy
enough? Would it move, would it flow?
Clearly we had to be ready for battle
the next night, considering all the
dance armor these ladies were putting on.
But of course, this was all in good fun. The wedding came, and everyone danced
all night and in the tumult and
celebration the duel was rendered
irrelevant as love was in the air
and joy was the only thing remaining
and two families became one.
Although if you were to look at the wedding video, I'm sure it would show the Bride's side
clearly out-dancing the Groom's...
Oh STOP IT!
Save the qer-ing foundation
My friend Mitra, in response to the shocking news about the Egyptian Belly Dance Crisis had this to say:
Great article. It's inspiring me to start a "Save the Gherring Foundation" in Iran.
I think that the "Gher" is in danger of disappearing! We should have a underground "gher"
movement! It can be the start of a great resistance! They said we should wear hejab,
but who can stop us from "gherring" in the hejab!"
 We here at ajabanzabAn take this idea seriously. The question here is: What do we call this
foundation in Persian? See our attempt at right. [Note to non-native speakers, read Persian from
right to left, and don't forget that there is an unwritten but always pronounced "e" sound between
every modifier and modified. In other words, you would say "bonyAd-eh hefz-eh qer".] We use the word "hefz" which is more like "preservation."
I suppose we could use "nejAt dAdan", which is closer to "save," but seems off somehow. And notice how difficult it
is to translate qer! The dictionary says "strut, alluring swagger, alluring wiggle,
sinuous movement (especially of the neck or hips aimed to allure)".
I think "attitude" could also be a definition. Perhaps it's best if we just show you.
If you have any suggestions or want to volunteer
for the Save the Qer Foundation,
don't hesitate to contact us! We will
forward your querries to Mitra until
she gets the foundation website set up.
Note: In her transliteration, Mitra uses gh for the guttural g sound,
while our kits use q. There is
no right or wrong here. These are all approximations. If you don't
speak Persian, ask a Persian friend to say the word for you.
That's the only way to get the sound. Also, note the words on
little black and
white tiles. This is a simulation of our magnet kit words. Of course, here we cheated and made the translation line big which
implies a large magnet. In the
actual kit, if these words appear, we would either make the font
very small on the English side, or use a shorter definition (like "memory" for hefz). This is technically OK, because each word can have several different
definitions that are determined in context. As we know the context
in this instance, we used a longer definition. This is not to confuse you, but to celebrate the flexibility of language.
 Ooh! This brings up another issue! The Persian language when written rarely shows the short vowels (the zirozebar -
which we show here now in this image).
In fact, the word qer above is really just qr. We decided it had a short "e" vowel sound and made it "qer" in English.
But if you saw that word, it could also have a short "o" sound and be "qor", which means herneated, having a hernia.
(I always thought "qor" meant "to grumble and complain". Maybe that's the "qor" spelled with a qeyn...)
I guess
the lesson here is
that you should not
qer in excess, or you might get a qor! And also, I want to make
it absolutely clear that the Save the Qer Foundation does not want to
save the hernia.
We want to save the alluring wiggle.
Oh, I just love language.
|
