Iranian Festival: The Shiraz Arts Festival

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Shiraz Arts Festival
The Shiraz Arts Festival was Iran's annual international summer art festival. The main agenda of the festival was to nurture arts and raise the standards or raise Iran's cultural standards. The festival began in 1967 and continued until 1977 (Afshar 1). The festival played a significant role in creating an encounter between the west and the east. The festival was held in Shiraz and Persepolis in central Iran. The festival program comprised several activities, which included dance, music, and film (Afshar 1). Other activities included in the festive included debates and symposia. The activities were performed in various locations in Shiraz and its surroundings to accommodate the participants and the audience. Other venues where the activities were conducted included Bagh-e Delgosha, Saray-e Moshir, Hafezieh, the ruins of Persepolis, and the concert hall on the Shiraz (Afshar 1). An advisory committee was formed to develop the festival's goals and scope. According to Ghitbi, the festival would undertake research and pursue activities in the creative domain.
Some individuals who appeared at the festival included Andrei Serban, Bijan Mofid, Robert Wilson, and Jerzy Grotowski. Ali Nassirian and Joseph Chaikin. On the other hand, traditional plays such as ta'zieh, kathakali, and Noh from Iran, India, and Japan, were represented by individuals such as Duro Lapido and Pabuji Ki Phad, among others. The festival also comprised music performances. For example, traditional music in Iran was performed by musicians such as Jalil Shahnaz, Hossein Tehrani, Hassan Kassai, and Ali-Asqar Bahari, among others. Young musicians performing at the festival included Parisa, Mohammad-Reza, Dariush Talai, and Majid Kiani. The Shiraz festival also comprises traditional non-western music, consisting of dances from countries such as China, Algeria, Indonesia, and the Philippines (Afshar 1). Although it has been several years since the passage of the Shiraz Arts Festival, the festival has remained in people's minds. The impacts of the festival in Iran and its surrounding cannot be underestimated. However, the festival has been criticized for having some of the most controversial trajectories concerning policy, cultural attitude, and intercultural contact in contemporary Iranian history (Hormoz 1). Despite the few criticisms, the festival is considered the most transformative intercultural experience apart from the Iranian cultural and political sensitivities.
Across the Iranian cultural terrain and the national agenda, the festival's goal was to broaden theory, discourse, practice, and criticality parameters. Exchanges and the exposure that occurred as a result of the festival played a significant role in aiding the transformation and improvement of the cultural sphere (Hormoz 1). Analysts argue that no form of sponsorship, investment, or residency abroad can have the same influence as that obtained from the intercultural exchanges at home as was with the Shiraz festival. Research shows that affordable tickets were available for students so that majority of them would attend the festival. Moreover, the university dormitories were opened so that these facilities would accommodate students from different parts of the country.
According to available data, most enthusiastic people about the festival came from middle and lower economic backgrounds (Mahlouji 1). The group mainly comprised less privileged individuals, making it difficult to gain exposure to international scenes frequented by the privileged in society. While most of the audience consisting young enthusiasts who came from Tehran, the wider audience also had an opportunity to watch what happened throughout the festival as the events were recorded and aired through television throughout the year. As the festival began, it operated on an indie budget of one hundred thousand dollars, and by 1977 the festival was operating at seven hundred thousand dollars. Most of the festivalgoers, including the audience and the performers, attested that the Shiraz festivals provided them with a unique experience for enhanced growth, exposure, and exchange with people from different parts of Iran (Mahlouji 1). Some performers who benefited significantly from the Shiraz festivals include Attila Pessyani, Shohreh Aghdashlou, and Reza Abdo, among others.
The festival performance mainly focused on evaluating local modes that include, among others, the Commedia dell'arte style and the ru-hozi performance. The festival performance also focused on musical traditions and reconceptualization of performance modes that had been previously banned. Such performances included the ta'ziye ritual (Hormoz 1). Some researchers argue that the nature of the twentieth-century renaissance in Iranian music resulted from the festival exposure. As a result of the exposure resulting from the festival, innovations in Iranian theatre were developed. Examples of such innovations included the city...