The Shiraz Arts Festival:
Communication, Heritage and Technology in 97 ’s Iran
CAA Annual Conference
Ale andria Bro n-Hedjazi, PhD Student
Stanford Uni ersit , Department of Art Histor
Introduction: (Title Slide); Introduce logo slides without script (slide)
(Slide) The Shiraz Arts Festival was one of the most radical cultural gatherings of the Cold
War-era. Every summer, the Iranian government invited and hosted a diverse range of traditional
and avant-garde artists from around the world to perform (slide) music, (slide) dance, (slide)
film, and (slide) theater. (slide) The Festival began in 1967 (the same year as the Shah’s lavish
coronation ceremony), (slide) and abruptly came to an end in 1977 (just weeks before the Islamic
Revolution overthrew the Shah). For the eleven years in between, (slide) the Festival was a site
of extraordinary intercultural exchange; an East-West dialogue with Iran as its center. The aim of
the festival was to stimulate cross-cultural dialogue: to introduce modern and foreign modes of
artistic expression to Iran, and to celebrate traditional arts of Iranian heritage to the outside
world. (slide) This dichotomy between modern and traditional resulted in an almost
unimaginable spectacle: Because of the unbearable heat of Persian summer days, the outdoor
performances began at sundown. Lit by candle light and desert stars, artists performed to live
audiences against the backdrop of ancient Persian monuments in Shiraz and Persepolis. (I want
to show you some of the photographs to give you an image of the festival). (slides)
(slide) While the artists performed in Shiraz and Persepolis, (slide) a simultaneous
gathering of communication theorists (both Iranian and non-Iranian) met in the Universities of
Mashhad and Tehran. It is crucial to emphasize that the festival was a state-sponsored event.
(slide) The Shah’s Wife, Queen Farah Diba Pahlavi was the festival’s patroness. The original
idea and funding for the festival was the result of a collaboration between Queen Farah and
NIRT: National Iranian Radio and Television. (slide) Modernization was the defining feature of
the Pahlavi dynasty. What role would tradition play in this push towards modernization? Where
would cultural heritage figure into this image and identity of a Modern Iran? (slide) The
communication specialists in Iran addressed these specific questions. How could new media
technologies be effectively and ethically utilized in developing countries? They produced
revolutionary work that pushed back against earlier media theory in one important way: whereas
previous (namely, American theorists) favored total modernization as a remedy for undeveloped
countries, the diverse group of scholars in Iran advocated for the preservation of culture as a
crucial factor in the process of modernization.
(slide) The Festival played out these questions and theories on an international stage. Yet,
the festival was also a platform for Iran to reach its national audience. (slide) Because the festival
was funded by NIRT, the entire production was broadcast into Iranian homes vis a vis radio and
television. This brought cultural access to every class of the Iranian public. Those without
financial means to attend the festival could consume the event visually and audibly from their
domestic interior. I want to underline that the missions of NIRT and the Festival were connected
and synonymous: to find a way of developing Iran’s future while not losing connection to the
nation’s rich past.
(slide) Anxieties of development erasing tradition were not unwarranted. It’s now a
standard view that many Cold War modernization efforts came with the cloaked subset of
cultural imperialism. The Shah’s close ties to the American government was a constant source of
violent backlash, especially in relation to oil revenues and foreign profits. (slide) The
state-funded Festival that invited foreign artists to perform in Iran- was, and remains, a hotly
contested event. So much so that it is still forbidden in Iran to mention or discuss the festival in
public. Communication theory is then a crucial piece in understanding the political and artistic
climate of 1960s-70s Iran- yet, no art historical writing examines the festival’s link to media
theory. (slide) The only book that examines media in 20th-ce Iran focuses on the event of the
Revolution. The book argues that through surveillance and censorship the Shah’s repressive
regime erased any public space that would have fostered political dissent. (slide) Protected by the
shield of religion, the space of the mosque’s minbar was the only platform left for political
discussion. (The mosque and minbar was historically used as a seat of legislation). (slide) The
book also argues that while the Shah unsuccessfully utilized big media of television and radio to
win public endorsement of state power, (slide) it was ultimately the small media of cassette tapes
and copied leaflets that won public support of the Revolution. (revolution slides) (slide) My
research builds on these provocative yet strict binaries. I see the Festival as an alternative space
that perforated boundaries of big and small media. (slide) The performances were themselves
sites of communication where dialogue was activated. This complicates the notion of the mosque
as the only public space available to subversive politics. We will explore this in two
performances: (slide) Peter Brook’s Orghast, (slide) and Bijan Mofid’s Shahre Ghese.
(slide) While the mosque vocalized and brought visibility to political opposition, the
performance of Orghast was in many ways the exact opposite. By invitation of the Queen, Peter
Brook was commissioned to create a play specifically for the Festival in Shiraz. The play was
performed in two acts. Act I commenced at sunset on the ruins of Persepolis and began with a
shrill scream that was said to evoke the voice of the sun. Orghast enacted the myth of
Prometheus- the creator of mankind who gave humans the gift of fire and skill of metal work.
An action for which he was punished by Zeus, who ensured everyday that an eagle ate his liver
as he was helplessly chained to a rock. (slide) Written by Ted Hughes, Orghast sought out an
empty space devoid of language barriers. Hughes wanted to depart from the limits and
associations of the English language, and thus created an entirely fictitious code based primarily
on ancient Avestan, Latin, and Greek. The entire narrative was communicated in this invented
language- which relied on raw sound to transmit universal emotions. (slide) The performance’s
connection to sound was also related to its chosen site. In the days leading up to the performance,
Brook, Hughes and the entire group went in search of a landscape of sacred sound. After
exploring various sites in the Persian desert, the site of Naqhshe Rostam was chosen. (slide)
(This is the burial site of the Achaemenid Kings, dating back to 6rh ce BC). (slide) The myth of
Prometheus was enacted amidst the tombs of ancient Persian kings and traveled down, with the
audience, (slide) into the cube of Zoroaster.
(slide) Orghast was Brook’s first experimental performance with his International Center
for Theater Research- a group of multi-national, multi-racial actors. The goal of the group was to
reexamine the purpose of theater, and to reveal the potential of performance to transcend cultural
boundaries. Brook believed that true theater should mingle and blur with the everyday. In
Brook’s theater, lines between actor and audience were erased, creating a multi-sensorial
performance. (slide) This theater used performance as a vessel to invoke invisible worlds not
immediately available to normative perception. Orghast uses myth to activate this heightened
awareness, Prometheus himself becomes present in the Shirazi desert. The story of a man
struggling between empathy for humanity and punishment from those in power becomes a living
story in 1971 Iran. Orghast created a participatory and collective experience where ancient
landscapes and sounds led to a state of shared transcendence over difference. The performance of
Orghast then communicated across cultures, across space, and across ancient-modern
timescapes.
(slide) While the performance of Orghast used an invented language of raw sound to
communicate cross-culturally and myth to communicate across time, Bijan Mofid’s play ignited
dialogue in a much more localized and specific moment. Shahre Gheseh (City of Tales)
premiered at the 1968 Festival. It was an allegorical satire written in the form of a musical play.
This recalled the tradition of Persian folklore and storytelling. While the language was
unassuming, socio-political commentary was embedded in the lyrics. Unlike the fantastical
landscapes of the other performances, Shahre Ghese was performed indoors and the stage-set
was simply composed of cardboard and papier-mâché. The architectural cutouts simulated both
an outdoor Iranian village and indoor madrasah or Islamic school. The papier-mâché masks were
the only costumes, and two child actors were the the only unmasked characters. (slide) While on
the surface the play seemed intended for children, the play tapped into deep contemporary crises
of Iranian identity. The masks both concealed the identity of the actors and represented various
characters: the sly fox, a poetic parrot, a carpenter donkey, an intellectual monkey, and so on.
(slide) The main character of the play is an elephant, a foreign visitor to the City of Tales, who
falls and breaks his tusk upon entering the city gates. The animals ultimately “help” the elephant
by fastening the broken tusk to his forehead and cutting off his trunk. By the end of the play, the
disfigured elephant is no longer recognizable to himself. His image no longer matches that on his
identification card, and the elephant is forced to take on a new foreign name and identification.
Themes of identity alteration and distortion are represented in the character of the
elephant. Throughout the play, multiple references are made to mismanagement of the Iranian
government: the high unemployment rate; loss of traditional craftsmanship in favor of mass
production; and rampant illiteracy. The play not only obliquely criticizes the policies of the Shah,
but hints also at the corruption in the growing power of Islamic clerics. The character of the fox,
who represents the Islamic mullah, is overridden with paranoia, superstition and xenophobia.
When analyzed within its political context, it is a story of characters whose realities are inhibited
by enforced practices and values. The characters of the City of Tales have grown blind and
accustomed to their own society of trickery and deception. In contrast to inventing a new
language transcendent of cultural barriers, City of Tales is composed entirely in Farsi. Not only
Farsi, but in several dialects of different regions of Iran. The rhythmic verse of Classical Persian
poetry is performed alongside the vernacular accent specific to Tehran. This allowed linguistic
access exclusively to Iranian people. Many for whom the experimental language of the
avant-garde was confusing and disorienting. Further, the fact that the play was performed
indoors allowed for perfect audio-visual recording. City of Tales was a site of communication
within the Iranian community, especially for those listening and watching from their homes who
were able to pick up on specific socio-political references encoded within the allegory.
These are just two performances of hundreds that took place in the eleven years of the
Shiraz Arts Festival. The cultural impact of Orghast lives on in performance history, as the
experience of traditional Iranian religious performance left a profound impact on Brook- so the
notion of East-West cultural influence worked both ways. The Festival itself was a source of
constant criticism by Ayatollah Khomeini. One of the first acts of violent uprising was the
burning of Cinema Rex in August 1978. Anti-Shah Islamists blocked the exits where a film of
Iranian avant-garde cinema was being screened. 500 civilians were locked inside the theater and
killed. The Festival, scheduled to begin in weeks time, was indefinitely cancelled. The Islamic
Iranian Revolution had begun. On the rooftops, opponents to the Islamic Revolution blared the
songs of Bijan Mofid’s City of Tales. The haunting lyrics of a play whose characters were stuck
between the abrupt push towards modernization and the paralyzing stasis of traditionalism.
The Shiraz Arts Festival was a site of communication that ignited exchange and political
commentary. The 1978 Revolution left both cultural and communication projects never fully
realized. This research seeks to resurrect the ideas of those theorists and artists that collaborated
and sought to create a prismatic culture in Iran, with the hope that one day, the projects might be
resumed and fully realized. Thank you.
The Shiraz Arts Festival:
Communication, Heritage and Technology in 97 s Iran
Colle e2Art2Asso iation2Annual2Con eren e2
Cold2War2Alle ian es:2The2Red2‘ s
Fe ruar 2 ,2
2
Ale andria2Bro n-Hedjazi,2PhD2Student22
Stan ord2Uni ersit ,2Department2o 2Art2Histor 2
Festival o Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis
Graphi Desi n: Bijan Sa ari
National Iranian Radio and Television
Graphi Desi n: Mohammad Reza Aslani
Islami Repu li o Iran Broad astin
Graphi Desi n: famid Nadimi
th Festival Poster
97 , Qobad Shiva; 7th Festival Poster
97 , Fereydoun 3ve;
th Festival Poster
977 , Qobad Shiva
John Cage and David Tudor
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Uma Sharma, Kathak
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1969
Ingmar Bergman and Satyajit Ray, Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Pahlavi Coronation Ceremony
Golestan Palace, Tehran, 19
Iranian Revolution
Streets of Tehran, 1979
th Festival Poster
97 , Qobad Shiva; 7th Festival Poster
97 , Fereydoun 3ve;
th Festival Poster
977 , Qobad Shiva
Tehran
Persepolis
Shiraz
Mashhad
Tehran
Mashhad
Persepolis
Shiraz
Le t: Empress Farah Di a Pahla i ith Andy Warhol
Ri ht: Empress Farah ith Mauri e Bejart
Tehran
Mashhad
Persepolis
Shiraz
Le t: Reza Shah Pahlavi White Revolution Speech
Ri ht: State Propa anda Poster or Modernization
Contributors:
Majid Tehranian
Daniel Lerner
Ithiel de Sola Pool
Farhad Hakimzadeg
Marcello Vidale
Donald Meals
Edward Ploman
Abraham Moles
Elihu Katz
Ivor Davies
Edwin Parker
Ali Mohammadi
Armand Defever
Robert Filep
Amin Banani
Le t: Daniel Lerner, The Passin o Traditional Society 1 5
Ri ht: Comm. Policy or National Development 1
Tehran
Mashhad
Tehran
Persepolis
Shiraz
Mashhad
Anti-Shah Protest, 1979
Tehran
Persepolis
Shiraz
Mashhad
Ayatollah Khomeini at Mos ue in Qom, I an, 1963
Pahla i2 5 2Anni ersary2of2the2Persian2Empire2Cele ration
The2entire2e ent2 as2 road ast2on2li e2TV ,2Persepolis,2 97
A atollah Khomeini in e ile
Neauphle-le-Château, 1977
Khomeini supporters use copy machines to generate anti-shah protest, 1
Alfons2and2Aloys2Kontarsky,2
Stockhausen’s2Mantra
Shiraz2Arts2Festival,2 97
Peter Brook, Orghast
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19
Punishment of Prometheus
Peter Brook, International
Center for Theater Research
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Ted Hu hes Sketches and Script or Orghast at Persepolis, 1971
Pete B ook, Inte national
Cente fo Theate Resea ch
Shi az A ts Festival, 1971
Acoustics Check at
Site of Na she Rostam
Peter Brook, Orghast
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Peter Brook, Orghast
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Collaboration at Shiraz Arts Fetsi al: L-R Peter Brook, Arby O anessian, Jerzy Groto ski
Peter Brook, Orghast
Shiraz Arts Festival, 1971
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19
Burnin o Cinema Rex
Abadan, Iran
Au ust 1 , 1
Iranian Revolution,
1979
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19
Bijan Mofid, Shahre Gheseh
Shiraz Arts Festival, 19