Ava Behjat ’27
Opinion Page Editor
Would it shock you to find out that the Odyssey was performed centuries before codification? What about the stories of the Bhagavad Gita or King Arthur? Even before writing, humans still had stories to remind our species of the reality of the universe. But storytelling is delicate. When a person dies, an entire macrocosm takes its last breath, and millions of stories, fictional or not, are hidden away. In the case of Iranian street performance, the retelling of stories over centuries has preserved the culture and language for thousands of years.
The oldest recorded instance of Iranian theater comes from the ancient Greek historian Herodotus who recorded two main forms of performance. Naqqāli is the retelling of Iranian folk stories in a performative manner. A popular character of Naqqāli is the pagan sun god, Mehr. After the conversion of pagan Iran to Zoroastrianism, Mehr integrated himself into Zoroastrian mythos as the son of the supreme god Ahura Mazda. Stories of the god Mehr make it to the modern day in which the Iranian celebration of the fall equinox is known as Mehregan (“Festival of Mehr”), thanks to a strong oral tradition.
The second oldest form of Iranian performance is Mirnouroozi, or stories performed on the Persian new year, Nourooz. Nourooz is around 3,000 years old and its stories are preserved through generations of morsheds, or performers that travel across the country in caravans.
Despite Iran’s diverse social classes, tribes, and ethnicities, entertainment was accessible for all. One astonishing instance of this national unity through art is Shahnameh-khaani, a form of Naqqāli. During the Muslim conquests of Iran during 600 AD, Arab armies attempted to erase Iranian identity by forbidding Farsi and suppressing native stories. Although some changes occurred, the Persian language was still intact and the peoples’ identity was reinforced by a rebellious boom of distinctly Iranian art such as the national epic, Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”). Shahnameh is a series of Iranian folk stories about the succession of kings from the dawn of time according to Zoroastrian and pagan sources. The retelling of Shahnameh is credited to be one of the reasons why Iranian identity is remarkably different from Arab culture. Shahnameh-khaani, or the street performance of stories from Shahnameh are still popular today and are the most frequently staged stories of Iranian theater.
Although Iranian street performance has declined, young Iranian filmmakers have taken elements of Iranian theater and applied it to their films which have been described as “having gained international recognition as some of the most impactful media of the modern era” by the BBC.
Iranians may not be performing in the way their ancestors did, but they are aware of the value of culture which can only be meaningfully preserved through art. Just as the handprints on the cave walls were all meant to signify humanity’s mark in existence, Iranian street performance is simply another medium for expressing what it means to be human, traveling through this strange yet kind time and space.