The Shiraz Festival: avant-garde arts performance in 1970s Iran
Robert J. Gluck
Department of Music, University at Albany
[email protected]
Abstract
For twelve years, The Festival of Arts Shiraz / Persepolis in
Iran hosted musical, theater and dance performances mixing
traditional Persian arts with contemporary avant-garde works
by Western composers, including electronic music by Xenakis,
Stockhausen, Cage, Tudor and Mumma. A proposed center for
the arts, designed by Xenakis, unfortunately never came to
fruition. A new generation of Iranian musicians was inspired
by the presence of visiting artists, some studying abroad to
further the country's art institutions. Iran during the final days
of the Shah also presents a situation where artistic expression
co-existed in an ultimately untenable balance with the
political repression of Iranian citizens.
1 Introduction
Iran in the 1970s, during the final decade of
Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign, provided a home for the
flowering of electronic music and avant-garde arts. An officially
sponsored arts festival featured music, at times commissioned,
by such musicians as lannis Xenakis, John Cage, Gordon
Mumma, David Tudor and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Western
works were programmed along side traditional Persian music,
dance and drama, and contemporary Iranian cinema. Plans were
developed for a significant arts center, which was to include
state of the art electronic music and recording studios. A new
generation of Iranian composers and artists were inspired by the
festivals to integrate contemporary techniques and aesthetics,
often including electronics. Further developments within Iran
came to a halt with the coming of the Islamic Revolution in
1979.
The Shah was interested in cultivating a
technologically modem state within a traditional cultural
context and an international political environment where other
nations, especially Great Britain and the Soviet Union, coveted
her land and oil resources. His search for support led to
compromising alliances, including a 1953 coup supported by
the United States Central Intelligence Agency and to political
intrigue, all pointing to the growth of a police state that
tolerated no political opposition. The Shah hoped to rationalize
the secular base of his rule as a continuation of the ancient, preIslamic Persian Empire, unified by Cyrus the Great, in 539
B.C.E. The 2500th anniversary of this event, in 1971, provided
a rationale for an international event at the ruins of the royal
seat of Darius I, a successor to Cyrus, in Persepolis. The 1967
establishment of a Festival of Arts at Persepolis and the
nearby university city of Shiraz simultaneously provided
the historical linkage and the desire of the Empress Farah
Diba, a former architectural student, to showcase the
cultural enlightenment of her country. She was convener
and a major presence at each year's Festival.
National Iranian Radio and Television (NITV), also
founded in 1967, served as sponsor and administration.
Sharazad (Afshar) Ghotbi, a violinist and wife of the
television network director, was named festival musical
director. The tone of festival programming reflected the
Empress's artistically sophisticated, often Western,
internationalist and contemporary tastes. In the final
years of her reign, as her tastes began to shift towards
more traditional Persian arts, so did the direction of the
festival.
The Western orientation of much of the
programming, however, proved controversial, especially
as the Shah's rule waned and revolutionary Islam
characterized the rising opposition. The Festival's
seeming demonstration of artistic and intellectual
openness sharply contrasted with the lack of freedom
experience by the Iranian people. The opulence of the
annual festivities paradoxically highlighted the
increasing economic crisis experience by most Iranians.
The vacuum created by the elimination of secular
opposition was filled by rising Islamic religious
movements, which viewed the festivals as anathema to
their traditional worldview.
image courtesy ot the Merce Cunningham Dance
Foundation Archives, photographer unknown.
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