Shiraz arts festival

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Postage stamp Shiraz Art Festival, 1975

The Shiraz Art Festival was the first and only modern art festival in Iran. His focus was on the presentation of electronic music and avant-garde art in the fields of music, dance and theater. It took place from 1967 to 1977 in the city of Shiraz and in front of the ruins of Persepolis . The festival received worldwide attention. In addition to Iranian artists, artists from Western cultures such as Iannis Xenakis , Peter Brook , John Cage , Gordon Mumma , David Tudor and Karlheinz Stockhausen and Merce Cunningham were also represented. The festival planned for 1978 could no longer take place because of the ongoing demonstrations in the run-up to the Islamic Revolution . The festival was discontinued after the Islamic Revolution. A planned art center with recording studios could no longer be completed.

Foundation and organization

Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi greets John Cage and Merce Cunningham, 1972

The Shiraz Art Festival was founded in 1967 at the suggestion of Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi . The main sponsor of the festival was the Iranian State Radio ( NIRT , National Iranian Radio and Television), which was also founded in 1967 and was directed by Reza Ghotbi , the empress' cousin. Sharazad Ghotbi, a violinist and wife of Reza Ghotbi, took over the musical direction of the festival. At NIRT, Farrokh Ghaffari took over the management of the culture section and was thus responsible for the culture festival. The festival was founded in 1967 (1346) by the Shiraz Art Festival ( Persian سازمان جشن هنر شیراز Sazeman-e Dschaschn-e Honar-e Shiraz ) planned and carried out. The organization was led by a five-member board of directors and an advisory board of 33 members. The organization was divided into eight departments, consisting of the departments for theater, music, film, exhibitions, technical logistics, financing, guest relations and public relations. There were intensive connections to internationally active art and festival organizations to invite modern and outstanding artists to Shiraz. The performances of the annual festival were documented and published in corresponding publications.

program

Shahre Gheseh by Bijan Mofid, 1968

An important goal of the Shiraz Art Festival was to bring together artists from the Third World with avant-garde artists from the First World . The Indian sitarist Ostad Vilayat Khan met the American violinist Yehudi Menuhin and classical Persian music mixed with the sounds of a Balinese gamelan orchestra. One focus of the festival was electronic music and music that is now known as world music .

The opening event of the festival took place on September 11, 1967. The program of the first festival consisted of classical Iranian music, music from "the Orient", classical plays ( Ta'zieh von Hurr) from Iran and Western classical music. Among the artists at the first festival were Yehudi Menuhin , who performed with the NITV chamber orchestra, Ostad Vilayat Khan, one of the most famous sitar players from India, and Gilbert Amy with the Domaine Musical orchestra from France.

The composer most closely associated with the Shiraz Art Festival was Iannis Xenakis , who was represented in 1968 with Nuits , a work for a choir. The performance took place with the choir of the French ORTF under the direction of Marcel Couraud. The play was dedicated to all political prisoners. A highlight was the appearance of the most popular Indian musician Bismillah Khan on the Shehnai accompanied by the orchestra of the Iranian television NITV and a piano concert with Arthur Rubinstein and Iranian musicians. The play Shahre Gheseh by Bijan Mofid stood out among the theatrical performances . Another focus of the festival in 1968 was action art .

The moon and the leopard by Bijan Mofid, 1970

The focus of the third festival in 1969 was "Voice and Sound". Iannis Xenakis performed the percussion composition Persephasa , a commission from the French ORTF . Persephassa refers to stories about the Greek goddess Persephone that have intercultural references. Other outstanding artists who took part in the Schiras Festival in 1969 were Bruno Maderna , Yvonne Loriod , Max Roach and Martha Argerich . In addition, a gamelan group from Bali performed in Iran for the first time .

In 1970 “theater and action art” were a focus. At the opening, an adaptation of the story of “Wis and Ramin” by the Iranian poet Fachr-od-Dīn Ās'ād Gorgani for the theater was shown. The festival was attended by, among others, the Polish director Jerzy Grotowski , the Spanish opera singer Victoria de los Ángeles , the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and the NITV chamber orchestra under the direction of Farhad Meshkat.

Karlheinz Stockhausen with HYMNEN in Persepolis, 1972
Persepolis Event, Douglas Dunn (left), Carolyn Brown (back) and Merce Cunningham (right)

In 1971 the previous festival themes were reinterpreted. A highlight was the third commissioned work by Iannis Xenakis for the festival, Polytope de Persépolis , a multimedia performance that premiered on August 26, 1971 in the ruins of Persepolis. The American director and actor Andre Gregory made a guest appearance with his famous play Alice , an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland . The British director Peter Brook was represented with a premiere of the play Orghast by Ted Hughes . In addition, the Chamber Orchestra of the Moscow Conservatory of Music conducted by Rudolf Borissowitsch Barschai , the Philharmonic Orchestra Krakow, Bruno Maderna with a light installation, Jérôme Savary with his Le Grand Magic Circus , Joseph Chaikin with a theater group and Maurice Béjart with two ballet performances, a choreography Saadis Golestan and a choreography called Farah in honor of the founder of the Shiraz arts festival Schahbanu Farah Pahlavi.

In 1972 the art festival became a true Karlheinz Stockhausen festival. The performances began on September 1st at 9 pm in the Seraye Moshir with MANTRA with Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky . The pieces MIKROPHONIE I-REFRAIN-PROZESSION followed on September 2nd at 9:30 p.m. On 3.9. the HYMNS was performed at 21:30 in Persepolis. On September 4th, the Seraye Moshir was again a performance venue with POLE for 2 ( Vetter and Böttner ), SPEKTREN ( Gentle Fire ) and TREFFPUNKT ( Gentle Fire ), SPIRAL ( Eötvös ), TELEMUSIK and KONATKTE ( Eötvös, Caskel ). On September 5, a "Stockhausen Debate" took place at Shira University, followed by the performance of piano pieces VI, VII, VII and IX ( Bojé ) and COMMUNICATION ( intermodulation ). On September 7th, groups of instrumentalists and singers played pieces from THE SEVEN DAYS from dawn until around 6:30 pm at various locations in the city. From 6:30 p.m. GROUPS and CARRÉ were performed in four channels in the Seraye Moshir . The conclusion was the performance STERNKLANG in Delgosha Park in front of an audience of 8,000. The open-air concert in Stockhausen was downright stormed by the visitors. While in Western countries never more than a few hundred listeners came to his concerts, which were perceived as too avant-garde, more than 8,000 visitors wanted to hear his music in Shiraz. Other composers of modern music such as John Cage were also enthusiastic about the popularity of the audience. In Shiraz, they were celebrated by the public and were not confronted with the argument, often voiced by friends of classical Western music, that what they composed “was not music at all” . The mostly young Iranian audience immediately found access to the modern compositions and was enthusiastic about the possibilities that the festival offered from the start. The Indian group Kathakali was represented with a performance of Rostam and Sohrab . The Iranian director Arbi Avanessian performed a play by Abbas Nalbandian. In 1972 Merce Cunningham performed with the ballet Persepolis with music by John Cage on a stage in front of the ruins of Persepolis. The American Gordon Mumma was also represented with a performance. The Indian Shanta Rao showed classical Indian dancers.

The moderate admission prices and the partially free open-air performances did the rest to make the festival popular with the art-loving youth of Iran.

Influences

The festival had a huge impact on the growing Iranian artists and composers. John Cage became one of her heroes. The University of Tehran Music Faculty was actively involved in the program. The Iranian composer Dariusch Dolat-Shahi recalls:

“Every year I waited anxiously for the festival to begin. The performances were a unique opportunity for us to get informed about the latest developments in the world of music. I got my first composition commission for the festival when I was nineteen. "

Not only Iranian composers, but also theater, film and dance were funded. Zara Huschmand writes:

"Majid Jafari's works such as Pessyani or the works of other Iranian directors were heavily influenced by Jerzy Grotowski , Peter Brook , Tadeusz Kantor or other European avant-garde artists who had come to Shiraz."

The young Iranian artists were granted state grants to enable them to study abroad.

Dolat-Shahi began work on From Behind the Glass at Columbia-Princeton University's Electronic Music Center for the 1976 Festival, a work for 20 string instruments, piano, tape, and echo system.

The last festival in 1977 included works by Fawzieh Majd, Ivo Malek, Bach and Mashayeki.

The planned art center

The success of Xenakis' Polytope de Persépolis led to his employment as a consultant for the establishment of a Cité des Arts in Shiraz-Persepolis. Xenakis borrowed the plans for this center from designs that he had already created in 1970 for the planned Le Corbusier Center for the Arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds . Xenakis planned a scientific research center for sound art and visual arts, film, theater, ballet, poetry and literature in order to convert the temporary activities of the Shiraz arts festival into a continuous artistic work. The center should offer job opportunities for 50 permanent artists and scientists as well as 40 places for visiting artists. On the one hand, it should be open to the concerns of the citizens of Shiraz and not an “intellectual ghetto”. At the same time, however, it should also break new ground in the aforementioned artistic fields and enable the most modern art performances. The center should work closely with the University of Shiraz , founded in 1946 . The plans also included a laboratory for “automatic” digital and analog music and film music, two recording studios, a library and a workshop, a performance hall. The centre's annual budget should be $ 7 million.

Conflicts

The left-wing Iranian opposition was the first to attack Xenakis, criticizing him for collaborating with a “human rights violator” like Mohammad Reza Shah . In an open letter to Le Monde, he defended himself with the words

“What motivated me to go to Iran was a deep interest in this wonderful country, which has produced such a rich culture and whose people have welcomed me with hospitality. I met many friends at the Shiraz festival who came from all fields of modern music and from all over the world; the festival featured a mix of traditional music from Asia and Africa and modern music; my music and my visual projects were received with enthusiasm by the young population ... My philosophy, which I live every day, is based on freedom of expression and the right to total criticism. I'm not an isolationist in today's networked and complex world ... There is no country that is completely free and does not have to live with a multitude of compromises without ultimately having to give up the basic principles of a free world. "

In the end, Xenakis gave in to pressure from the left opposition and ended cooperation with Iran.

Controversial performance of Pig! Child! Fire! of the Squat Theater New York

Other artists have also come under fire for their collaboration with the Shiraz Art Festival. So writes Gordon Mumma.

Jean Tinguely called me immoral because I would work with a repressive and elitist regime. My counter-argument was that I am going to Iran because of the people and their culture, for which I have great respect, and whose world and their point of view I like to get to know. You did not choose this government. "

In 1977 Khomeini took part in the discussion:

“It's hard to say anything about it. Indecent scenes are shown in Shiraz, and soon this is also to happen in Tehran. Nobody says anything. The clergy in Iran is silent on this. I don't understand why the clergy don't protest. "

Khomeini referred to the performance Pig! Child! Fire! of the Sqat Theater from New York, in which a scene of rape of a woman by a Russian soldier was hinted at. In the version of the play shown in Shiraz, the actors were not exposed and there was also no clearly sexually interpretable representation of the actors. The piece was canceled after four performances in front of a total of 300-350 visitors because an ayatollah in Shiraz had objected to the performance. After Khomeini took up the matter, there was suddenly talk of thousands if not millions of innocent men, women and children who were forced to look at naked couples on the streets of Shiraz as part of the festival. In Iran, the festival was passed off as evidence of the moral depravity of the Pahlavis. After the critical voices in Iran, the critics of the Pahlavis abroad spoke up. In the New York Times , Mel Gussow wrote of a "reprehensible incident of a theater of atrocities" which "displays violent, obscene and tasteless scenes." It had been forgotten that the piece had already been shown in New York and Baltimore in a far more extreme form than in Shiraz before it was performed in Shiraz, and no one was disturbed by the performance there.

The representatives of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic of Iran had nothing more to do with experimental theater. The festival did not continue.

The end

With the end of the Shiraz art festival in 1978, a unique intercultural experiment came to an end, which had brought Western artists closer to the Iranian culture and which, conversely, had given Iranian artists an opportunity to be inspired by the latest developments in the international art scene . The works of both western and local artists met with an open public who eagerly soaked up the new and dealt with the artists and their performances openly and without hesitation. For Western artists it was a once in a lifetime experience that Gordon Mumma described in his memoir as "one of the extraordinary experiences of his life".

gallery

literature

  • Peter Chelkowski (Ed.): Ta'zieh - Ritual and Drama in Iran . New York University Press, 1979. Proceedings of the symposium of the same name, Shiraz Art Festival 1976.
  • Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah . University of California Press, 2009, pp. 415-422.
  • Robert Gluck: The Shiraz Arts Festival: Western Avant-Garde Arts in 1970s Iran (richly illustrated).
  • Her Highness (Farah Pahlavi) Office publication , 1354 (1975). Pp. 140-142.
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Texts on Music, 1970–1977 . Volume 4. Selected and compiled by Christoph von Blumenröder. DuMont, Cologne 1978, pp. 157-160, ISBN 3-7701-1078-1

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Publication by Her Majesty's Office (Farah Pahlavi), 1354 (1975). Pp. 140-142
  2. ^ Publication by Her Majesty's Office (Farah Pahlavi), 1354 (1975). P. 140.
  3. Part of Share Gheseh on YouTube
  4. http://payvand.com/news/06/jan/1158.html
  5. ^ Karlheinz Stockhausen: Texts on Music 1970-1977. Compiled by Christoph von Blumenröder. DuMont Buchverlag Cologne, 1978, p. 158.
  6. ^ A b Robert Gluck: The Shiraz Arts Festival: Western Avant-Garde Arts in 1970s Iran. www.mitpressjournals.org. P. 23.
  7. Open Letter to Le Monde, December 14, 1971.
  8. ^ Robert Gluck: The Shiraz Arts Festival: Western Avant-Garde Arts in 1970s Iran. www.mitpressjournals.org. P. 26.
  9. Speech of September 28, 1977, www.irib.ir/worldservice/imam/speech/in23.htm. Quoted from Robert Gluck: The Shiraz Arts Festival: Western Avant-Garde Arts in 1970s Iran. www.mitpressjournals.org. P. 27.
  10. Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 420