Iranian Urban Popular Social Dance and So-Called Classical Dance: A Comparative Investigation in the District of Tehran

Abstract

Some readers may find the style and organization of Ms. Ameri's article different from those that they are used to finding in Dance Research Journal. One must keep in mind that in Iran the performance of dance, with the exception of male folk dancing in front of all-male audiences, has been banned for over twenty-five years. Even the performance of solo improvised dance in private parties, such as weddings, can result in severe punishment. Prior to the 1978/79 revolution only one serious, but deeply flawed, article (Zoka' 1979) in Persian had appeared in print. Ms. Ameri's article is a pioneering effort, the first serious scholarly article to appear in print in Iran by an Iranian in a quarter of a century, and one that the reader can more readily appreciate when he or she realizes that the research materials available to dance researchers in the West, Japan, and other parts of the world do not exist in Iran. Thus, the work Ms. Ameri undertook was burdened by a lack of knowledge of trends in contemporary dance research that many of us take as commonplace; the article took great personal courage to write.