Keeping up with the Iranians

(Performance and exhibition)

Shortly after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, banned music in Iran, equating it to opium. Consequently, many artists relocated to Los Angeles to find new ways of making a living and pursuing their artistry in exile without the previously provided governmental support. This often happened through recordings or concerts of the musical genre dāmbuli dimbol since it was what people would dance to at mehmooni (a social gathering by invitation to someone’s home, e.g., dinner, dance party, celebration, etc.). It is a fugitive culture of dance, music, and joy, which has long been discredited by intellectuals, Marxists, Islamists, and Westerners as apolitical and poisoned art. However, through illegal sound distribution, it found its way back to Iran and resurfaced in the domestic sphere as mainstream culture. Repression has made this music the signifier of secret collectivity and freedom—a catalyst for realizing dreams. 

The performance and exhibition "Keeping Up with the Iranians" emerge from this music history by reconstructing a mehmooni starring world-famous singers Setareh and Poupak, number one charting pianist Fereshteh, and renowned choreographer Dancing Dina, visiting all the way from Los Angeles, California. To the rhythm of dāmbuli dimbol songs, they invite the audience to an unforgettable evening of dance, music, cake, and joy. 

In the Shadow of the New Sun

(Thesis)

Between the 18th and 19th centuries, an almighty sun, both male and female, shined from Central Asia to North Africa. It set a beauty ideal that was neither male nor female; instead, it referred to a series of facial attributes, rhythms, melodies, and movements that any gender could embody to be adored. A figure with thick eyebrows, a mustache, smooth skin, pink lips, locks of hair, eyes, and a small mouth that swayed their hips, arms, and torso to a six-eight beat. In the middle of the 19th century, a slow yet powerful solar eclipse began in the landscape of the (fe)male sun. Today, it is known as colonialism, imperialism, and modernization—ruled by a sun without a face.

“In the Shadow of the New Sun” writers, curators, and artists Afrang Nordlöf Malekian and Nour Helou use academic research of painting, dance, and music by professors Afsaneh Najmabadi, Anthony Shay and Farzaneh Hemmasi; their conducted studies at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, American University in Cairo; and their personally collected vinyl discs and cassettes to examine how these non-binary expressions in Southwest Asia and North Africa remain today. The oeuvre narrates this history through an epic tale about a little star that burst into a magnificent Qajari (fe)male face, followed by anecdotes about how these non-binary gender expressions prevail today. The anecdotes are accompanied by a unique set of hand-colored photographs from the middle of the 20th century in Iran, Kuwait, and Lebanon, archived at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, as well as from the covers of vinyl discs and cassettes collected by Afrang and Nour.