My Life as A Persian Ballerina

My Life as A Persian Ballerina PDF Author: Haideh Ahmadzadeh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781716892448
Category : Ballet dancers
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Born in Tehran in 1930 into a mixed family of a Tartar mother and an Azerbayjani father, Haideh Ahmadzadeh started dancing at the age of seven in a country that was struggling to keep up with modern times. Dancing for girls was not an accepted or desirable occupation. Her love of dance made her overcome many obstacles and with the approval and backing of her mother and later her husband Nejad, she got to the top of her profession. With a great deal of hard work, discipline and drive, Haideh and Nejad founded a Ballet Academy, Iranian National Ballet Company and Iranian Folk Dance, Music and Song Group. They performed regularly for State guests at home and abroad, their travels wrought with a great deal of incident and adventure. When the Islamic Revolution put a stop to all artistic activities in Iran, Haideh and Nejad had to leave a lifetime's work behind and seek new adventures in the West.

My Life as A Persian Ballerina

My Life as A Persian Ballerina PDF Author: Haideh Ahmadzadeh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781716892448
Category : Ballet dancers
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
Born in Tehran in 1930 into a mixed family of a Tartar mother and an Azerbayjani father, Haideh Ahmadzadeh started dancing at the age of seven in a country that was struggling to keep up with modern times. Dancing for girls was not an accepted or desirable occupation. Her love of dance made her overcome many obstacles and with the approval and backing of her mother and later her husband Nejad, she got to the top of her profession. With a great deal of hard work, discipline and drive, Haideh and Nejad founded a Ballet Academy, Iranian National Ballet Company and Iranian Folk Dance, Music and Song Group. They performed regularly for State guests at home and abroad, their travels wrought with a great deal of incident and adventure. When the Islamic Revolution put a stop to all artistic activities in Iran, Haideh and Nejad had to leave a lifetime's work behind and seek new adventures in the West.

Gender and Dance in Modern Iran

Gender and Dance in Modern Iran PDF Author: Ida Meftahi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317620615
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage investigates the ways dancing bodies have been providing evidence for competing representations of modernity, urbanism, and religiosity across the twentieth century. Focusing on the transformation of the staged dancing body, its space of performance, and spectatorial cultural ideology, this book traces the dancing body in multiple milieus of performance, including the Pahlavi era’s national artistic scene and the popular café and cabaret stages, as well as the commercial cinematic screen and the post-revolutionary Islamized theatrical stage. It links the socio-political discourses on performance with the staged public dancer, in order to interrogate the formation of dominant categories of "modern," "high," and "artistic," and the subsequent "othering" of cultural realms that were discursively peripheralized from the "national" stage. Through the study of archival and ethnographic research as well as a diverse literature pertaining to music, theater, cinema, and popular culture, it combines a close reading of primary sources such as official documents, press materials, and program notes with visual analysis of filmic materials and imageries, as well as interviews with practitioners. It offers an original and informed exploration into the ways performing bodies and their public have been associated with binary notions of vice and virtue, morality and immorality, commitment and degeneration, chastity and eroticism, and veiled-ness and nakedness. Engaging with a range of methodological and historiographical methods, including postcolonial, performance, and feminist studies, this book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East history and Iranian studies, as well as gender studies and dance and performance studies.

Romance and Revolution

Romance and Revolution PDF Author: Clair Symonds
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780986941429
Category : Ballerinas
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Set against the glamorous backdrop of the Iranian National Ballet Company in 1970s Tehran, awash with money thanks to the generous patronage of the Shahs wife Farah Pahlavi known as Shahbanu, this is the true story of Clair Symonds, a naive 19 year old Jewish ballet dancer who grew up in South Africa during the era of apartheid and who sets off to Iran without even knowing where that country is, let alone anything about its rich history and culture. Within a few months of her arrival she has met and fallen in love with Arash Alizadeh, a dashing student of architecture five years her senior and whose passion in life, much to his fathers disdain, is classical dance - in addition to being a fierce critic of the Shahs dictatorial regime. Nothing, it seems, can prevent Clair and Arashs romance from moving rapidly towards marriage - even the opposition of their respective fathers. Having been seduced by the charm and allure of her dashing Iranian knight, Clair fails to take a stand against the Alizadeh familys policy of keeping her Jewishness strictly under wraps. There were dark mutterings, even from Arash, of the Holocaust being a myth to justify the existence of Israel and to dampen down sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. Not that such grand issues are of much concern to Clair - she is preoccupied with dancing the role of Zarema in The Fountain of Bakhchesarai and the great ballet classics which are part and parcel of the companys lavish repertoire. Besides, she is hopelessly in love and any criticisms of Arashs increasingly erratic behaviour fall on deaf ears. But Arash proves to be considerably more charming in courtship and seduction than in wedlock and matrimony - Clair seeing herself thrown into the arms of her new family rather than those of her husband. And in accepting the status quo she reluctantly becomes more sister than wife. Undeterred, Clair decides to marry Arash for a second time. Does love conquer all? Are religious and cultural differences insurmountable, as many would have us believe, meaning that any union between Jew and Muslim is doomed to failure from the outset? 'Romance and Revolution' is the uplifting, eye-opening true story of contemporary relevance of one young womans long, lonely and often painful journey of empowerment as, with the Revolution and the advent of the Ayatollahs in Iran, she begins to search for solutions which, hitherto, have eluded her. Is absolutely any behaviour acceptable relating to romance? Are there any limits at all when it comes to unconditional love?

Ballerina, My Story

Ballerina, My Story PDF Author: Darci Kistler
Publisher: ibooks
ISBN: 1596875305
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE From the time she was eight, Darci Kistler knew she wanted to be a ballerina. At thirteen she was on her own in New York City, attending one of the most famous ballet schools in the world. At seventeen she became the youngest principal ballertina in the history of the New York City Ballet. How did Darci make her dream come true? In her own words, she tells about her amazing career, from her first pink tutu to her starring role in The Nutcracker ballet. Here is the fairy tale story of what it's really like to become a ballerina. A Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Book Illustrated with photographs

The Encyclopedia of World Ballet

The Encyclopedia of World Ballet PDF Author: Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442245263
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Throughout the centuries, ballet has had a rich and ever-evolving role in the humanities. Renowned choreographers, composers, and performers have contributed to this unique art form, staging enduring works of beauty. Significant productions by major companies embrace innovations and adaptations, enabling ballet to thrive and delight audiences all over the globe. In The Encyclopedia of World Ballet,Mary Ellen Snodgrass surveys the emergence of ballet from ancient Asian models to the present, providing overviews of rhythmic movement as a subject of art, photography, and cinema. Entries in this volume reveal the nature and purpose of ballet, detailing specifics about leaders in classic design and style, influential costumers and companies, and trends in technique, partnering, variation, and liturgical execution. This reference covers: Choreographers Composers Costumers Dance companies Dancers Productions Set designers Techniques Terminology Among the principal figures included here are Alvin Ailey, Afrasiyab Badalbeyli, George Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pierre Beauchamp, Sergei Diaghilev, Agnes DeMille, Nacho Duato, Isadora Duncan, Boris Eifman, Mats Ek, Erté, Martha Graham, Inigo Jones, Louis XIV, Amalia Hernández Navarro, Rudolf Nureyev, Marius Petipa, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, and Agrippina Vaganova. This work also features dance companies from the Americas, Australia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Korea, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, and Vietnam. Productions include such universal narrative favorites as Coppélia, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Scheherazade, Firebird, and Swan Lake. Featuring a chronology that identifies key events and figures, this volume highlights significant developments in stage presentations over the centuries. The Encyclopedia of World Ballet will serve general readers, dance instructors, and enthusiasts from middle school through college as well as professional coaches and performers, troupe directors, journalists, and historians of the arts.

Glocal Bodies

Glocal Bodies PDF Author: Elaheh Hatami
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839460808
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
This book is a critical study of Iranian dance and the works of Iranian-American female dancers in exile. Focusing on the study of contemporary Iranian dance through analysis of the choreographies of three female dancers in diaspora (namely Aisan Hoss, Shahrzad Khorsandi, and Banafsheh Sayyad), this research is among the first of its kind. Elaheh Hatami investigates the transformation of professional Iranian dance and discusses the role of relocation and displacement in its performance. She argues that Iranian dance and Iranian female dancers have always been in exile - not only in a physical sense, but also in the metaphorical sense of ›exile‹ implying foreignness, exclusion, and marginalization.

The Dance of the Rose and the Nightingale

The Dance of the Rose and the Nightingale PDF Author: Nesta Ramazani
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815607274
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This is an extraordinary autobiography of a young girl growing up in Iran. The daughter of an English Christian mother and an Iranian Zoroastrian father, Nesta Ramazani sketches her personal life story against the backdrop of a society marked by the fusion of Iranian, Islamic, and Western cultures, and by the efforts of an authoritarian state to force modernization on a traditional society. Within this multicultural tapestry of personal, cultural, and national life, the author portrays how she came to love Persian and Western music, poetry, and dance. But translating this love into practice seemed an insurmountable task until an American woman pioneered the establishment of the first indigenous Iranian ballet company. As a member of this troupe, the author violated convention, performing first in her native land and then traveling abroad to exhibit this beautiful synthesis of Persian/Western forms to foreign audiences. The significance of this work transcends an autobiography penned by an Iranian woman—still a taboo in traditional Iranian society—it is a unique microcosm of today’s universal quest for a dialogue among civilizations. Ramazani’s story will appeal not only to students of Iran, the Middle East, and women’s studies, but also to general readers.

My Life

My Life PDF Author: Isadora Duncan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Unquestionably brave, creative, and erudite, the free spirit Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) captivated the American, European, and Soviet cultural scenes with her innovative modern dance and un-self-conscious lifestyle.

The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity

The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity PDF Author: Anthony Shay
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190493933
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Dance intersects with ethnicity in a powerful variety of ways and at a broad set of venues. Dance practices and attitudes about ethnicity have sometimes been the source of outright discord, as when African Americans were - and sometimes still are - told that their bodies are 'not right' for ballet, when Anglo Americans painted their faces black to perform in minstrel shows, when 19th century Christian missionaries banned the performance of particular native dance traditions throughout much of Polynesia, and when the Spanish conquistadors and church officials banned sacred Aztec dance rituals. More recently, dance performances became a locus of ethnic disunity in the former Yugoslavia as the Serbs of Bosnia attended dance concerts but only applauded for the Serbian dances, presaging the violent disintegration of that failed state. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity brings together scholars from across the globe in an investigation of what it means to define oneself in an ethnic category and how this category is performed and represented by dance as an ethnicity. Newly-commissioned for the volume, the chapters of the book place a reflective lens on dance and its context to examine the role of dance as performed embodiment of the historical moments and associated lived identities. In bringing modern dance and ballet into the conversation alongside forms more often considered ethnic, the chapters ask the reader to contemplate previous categories of folk, ethnic, classical, and modern. From this standpoint, the book considers how dance maintains, challenges, resists or in some cases evolves new forms of identity based on prior categories. Ultimately, the goal of the book is to acknowledge the depth of research that has been undertaken and to promote continued research and conceptualization of dance and its role in the creation of ethnicity. Dance and ethnicity is an increasingly active area of scholarly inquiry in dance studies and ethnomusicology alike and the need is great for serious scholarship to shape the contours of these debates. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity provides an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research from leading experts which will set the tone for future scholarly conversation.

Once A Dancer

Once A Dancer PDF Author: Allegra Kent
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312187507
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Balanchine ballerina Allegra Kent tells her singular story with the same originality, freshness, and grace she has brought to the stage. The book should be required reading for dancers everywhere for years to come. of photos.