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Bazi-ha-ye Nameyeshi: Iranian Women's Theatrical Plays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Anthony Shay
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Extract

Iranian women's comic improvised traditional theatre is a rich and important, but little-known, source of performative and textual material that has been rarely documented or discussed by serious students of folklore and dance, either in Iran or in the West. I argue that this amateur theatrical form performed and created by women for other women is the single most important source representing the multivocality of traditional Iranian women of all classes. Both in content and performance, these theatrical plays or games are a unique form of expression that needs several analytic approaches to elucidate its meaning and place in women's lives as well as in the wider area of traditional Iranian performance practices.

The term coined by S. A. ‘Enjavi-Shirazi, the Iranian folklorist and literary scholar, to describe the theatrical plays performed by and for women, bazi-ha-ye namayeshi, is probably best rendered in English as ‘theatrical’ or ‘dramatic’ plays. The bazi-ha (ha denotes the inanimate plural in Persian) are basically folk or traditional plays and games (bazi can mean either play or game, namayeshi translates as dramatic) that are primarily created and performed domestically by women throughout many parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Fall 1995 , pp. 16 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1995

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