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

Abstract

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.

On and Off the Stage at Atlanta Greek Picnic: Performances of Collective Black Middle-Class Identities and the Politics of Belonging

“…As I will show in the next chapter, the significance of the processes of black Greek life I have described in this chapter has to be found in their obvious and CHAPTER 3: BLACK IDENTITY SCRIPTING PROCESSES As many scholars have shown, performances provide the opportunity to performers to consciously negotiate between the available racial, gender, and sexual scripts he/she has selected to construct his/her identification (Adair 2013;al Faruqi 1978;Boddy 1989;Broch-due et al 1993;Coombs-Schilling 1989Cowan 1990;Deaver 1978;Heath 1994;Kapchan 1994;Lindisfarne 1994;Oware 2009;Shay 1995;Talle 1993;Tsing 1993;Wagner 1997).…”

“…Dance often exposes gender/class conflicts regarding sexually provocative dance movements and it operates in relation to class, race, gender, etc. as well as to erotic sexuality (al Faruqi 1978;Cowan 1990;Deaver 1978;Heath 1994;Kapchan 1994;Savigliana 1995;Shay 1995;Wagner 1997). (1939), the angry black female character named "Sapphire" from the television show Amos 'n' Andy (1951)(1952)(1953), and the hypersexual Jezebel persona based on the Biblical figure by the same name who represents promiscuity and using one's beauty to manipulate men (French 2012;hooks 1992;Thompson 2009).…”