Document Type
Book Chapter
Department
Dance (Pomona), Theatre (Pomona)
Publication Date
1998
Keywords
regional folk dances, solo improvised dance, Iranian dance, patterned movement practices
Abstract
As the locale for one of the oldest continuing cultural, linguistic, and ethnic entities, Iran provides archaeological evidence for dance portrayed on Mesopotamean pottery dated to 5000 BCE (Zoka', 1978). Evidence for continuing choreographic activity is documented in the historical writings of foreigners, from biblical times to ancient Greece to the Persian and Ottoman empires. Iconographic artworks showing dance also exist, such as silver objects from the Sasanian period (224-650 CE) and Persian miniatures from the twelfth century. Iran is, and most likely has always been, a place of immense ethnic and linguistic diversity, a continental crossroad open to influences from a wide variety of cultural sources. Its dance traditions reflect this diversity.
Rights Information
© 1998 Oxford University Press
Recommended Citation
Shay, Anthony. "Iran." In Selma Jeanne Cohen, Ed., International Encyclopedia of Dance, Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 513-515.
Included in
Cultural History Commons, Dance Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Performance Studies Commons
Comments
Shay, Anthony. "Iran" in Selma Jeanne Cohen, Ed., International Encyclopedia of Dance, Vol. 3, pp. 513-515, 1998, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.
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