BOOK PROJECT (in progress)
Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora: Dance, Spectatorship, and the Politics of Belonging
Selected for the Dance Studies Association’s First-time Author Mentorship Program (2019)
Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora: Dance, Spectatorship, and the Politics of Belonging is a multi-sited ethnography that employs movement- and discourse-analysis to examine choreographic content, media coverage, and audience reception of Iranian dancers residing in North America and Western Europe in the decades following 9/11 and the U.S.-led “War on Terror.” The diasporic Iranian dancers that I focus on in the book perform an array of genres: Iranian dances (classical, regional, popular, and contemporary), forms considered as part of Euro-American dance canons (such as modern, postmodern, and contemporary dance), and choreographies that draw from a wide range of performance forms. I query the cultural, political, aesthetic, and representational challenges these artists face, and I investigate how these artists choreographically negotiate and contest conditions of belonging and exclusion in their respective sites of residence. The book ultimately demonstrates that dance is an essential mode through which diasporic Iranians contest dominant stereotypes that construct them as racially Other, produce diasporic affiliations, and enact legal and cultural forms of citizenship.
Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora also examines how the politics of dance in the Iranian diaspora are intimately intertwined with the politics of dance in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Shortly after Iran’s 1979 Revolution, which marked the overthrow of the secularist Pahlavi monarchy and the instatement of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s new government associated dance with moral corruption, disbanded state-sponsored dance companies, and implemented restrictions on public dance performance, which remain in effect today. While dance-makers in Iran remain resilient in the face of state suppression and violence, individuals wishing to pursue professional dance training and careers must have the means to study and/or move abroad, where their status as a dancer from Iran in some cases enables pathways to legal citizenship through asylum. Iran’s dance restrictions furthermore compel many first- and second-generation immigrant Iranian dancers and audiences to consider dance in diasporic spaces a critical mode of cultural continuity and resistance. At the same time, I argue that Euro-American geopolitical and media discourses about the suppression of artistic expression in the Islamic Republic interpellate Iranian dancers into neocolonial paradigms of freedom/oppression that form the discursive economies of war and Euro-American state intervention. In the process, Iranian dancers are constructed as “objects of rescue” (to borrow from feminist scholar Inderpal Grewal), a subject position that I suggest is required for the incorporation of these otherwise marginalized Iranian immigrant subjects into the benevolent Euro-American state. Through this analysis, I develop a theory of what I call savior spectatorship, a multi-modal kinesthetic practice of engagement with Iranian dancers that is produced and sustained through (neo)colonial visual regimes and saving enterprises. Ultimately, I argue that diasporic Iranian dancers’ choreographies not only invite their audiences to see Iran and Iranians differently; through creative acts of refusal, some Iranian dancers go further to choreographically undermine the structures of seeing and feeling that produce the uneven power relations of savior spectatorship.
In offering a more nuanced perspective of the spectatorship of Iranian dances and dancers—and dances/dancers from/in MENA/SWANA more generally—this book highlights the resilience and creativity of Iranian dancers at the same time that it illustrates how dance can become a precarious form of political currency in the transnational “War on Terror” when it becomes a hegemonic barometer with which to measure modernity, freedom, and humanity. In all, Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora contributes toward the limited yet growing interdisciplinary field of critical scholarship on dance and performance in/from MENA/SWANA regions and diasporic communities.
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-reviewed Book Chapters
“Contemporary Iranian Dance and the Diasporic Politics of Authenticity.” In Dance in the Persianate World: History, Aesthetics, and Performance, ed. Anthony Shay (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers) (forthcoming 2023)
“New Media Performance and (AR)ticulations of the Self: A Conversation with Amir Baradaran.” In Performing Iran: Cultural Identity and Theatrical Performance, ed. Babak Rahimi (London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishing). (2021)
“Do Iranian Dancers Need Saving? Savior Spectatorship and the Production of Iranian Dancing Bodies as ‘Objects of Rescue’.” In Futures of Dance Studies, eds. Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press). (2020)
Web-based
“‘I’ve danced my whole life, but none of that is useful at all’: Netflix’s We Speak Dance (2018), Vulnerability and Collaborative Critiques.” With Melissa Blanco Borelli, Elena Benthaus, Claudia Brazalle, Royona Mitra, Cristina Rosa, Hanna Jarvinen, Celena Monteiro, Heather Rastovac-Akbarzadeh, and Meiver De la Cruz. In Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies: The Popular as the Political. Dance Studies Association, Vol. XXVVIII (2018): 54 – 60.
“Contending with Censorship: The Underground Music Scene in Urban Iran.” Intersections: A Journal of the Comparative History of Ideas 10, no. 2 (2009): 59 – 82.
Book Reviews
Review of Dance and Gender in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage by Ida Meftahi, in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 14, no. 1 (2018): 83 – 85.
Peer-reviewed Book Chapters Under Review
“Dance in Transnational and Virtual Iranian Contexts: Interview with Dance Center of Iran (Khaneh-ye Raqs).” Under review for the Oxford Handbook of Dance Praxis, eds. Anurima Banerji, Royona Mitra, and Jasmine Johnson (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press) (forthcoming 2025).
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles in Preparation
“Choreographing Liberation: Dance and Futurity in Iran’s Woman Life Freedom Protests.”
“Pain, Silence, and Refusal: Dancing Illegible Agency in Aisan Hoss’s The Pleasant Pain.”
“Threat, Defense, and Absence: Ali Moini’s My Paradoxical Knives and the U.S. ‘Muslim Travel Ban.’”
“Transaction, Temporality, and Queer Relationality: Amir Baradaran’s Marry Me to the End of Love.”
PH.D. DISSERTATION
“Performing Transnational Iranianness: The Choreographic Cartographies of Diasporic Iranian Dancers and Performance Artists.” University of California, Berkeley. Doctoral Program in Performance Studies.
Dissertation Committee: SanSan Kwan (Advisor), Catherine Cole, Minoo Moallem, and Munir Jiwa
Supported by the University of California Dissertation Year Fellowship
In “Performing (Trans)national Iranianness: The Choreographic Cartographies of Diasporic Iranian Dancers and Performance Artists,” I analyze performances by and conduct interviews with immigrant and diasporic Iranian dancers and performance artists in the United States, Canada, and France. I examine how these artists employ dance and performance to imagine, contest, and (re)invent Iranianness, or what it means to be Iranian in diasporic spaces. In the face of hegemonic Euro-American representations that construct Iranians as racially Other, performance becomes a critical mode for Iranian immigrants to enact diverse forms of cultural citizenship in and across transnational spaces. Through what I call choreographic cartographies, my project develops a framework that theorizes the kinesthetic mapping of immigrant Iranian performances as practices that disrupt and/or sustain state and representational regimes of power. In the corporeal making of space, both on and off stage, immigrant Iranian dancers and performance artists reveal themselves as embodied maps of the racialized, gendered, classed, and aesthetic politics that travel with and (re)shape their performing bodies. In performances that range from nationalistic and nostalgic to subcultural and subversive, performers in my study draw from, reconstruct, and experiment with a wide range of Iranian movements, aesthetics, and social practices. As choreographic cartographies, these performances demonstrate that multiple geo-temporalities emerge through embodied memory and kinesthetic relationality to home and displacement. Asserting that these performances destabilize hegemonic national narratives that determine “diaspora” as a unidirectional, neoliberal space and time of arrival, this research accordingly contributes to scholarship that theorizes diaspora as an affective, corporeal, and multi-temporal practice of becoming.
INVITED TALKS (SELECT)
2021 - Raqsvareh Festival/Dance Center of Iran, “Do (Female) Iranian Dancers Need Saving?: The Euro-American Production of Savior Spectatorship”
2020 - Kenyon College, “Race in Motion” speaker series in Dance and Performance Studies, “Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora: Dance, Spectatorship, and the War on Terror”
2020 - UC Berkeley’s Center for Race & Gender, Thursday Forums, “Choreographing Transnational Modernities: Imbrications of Race & Gender in Dance Performance and Spectatorship,” co-organized panel with Usha Iyer (Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at Stanford University)
2019 - University of California, Riverside, Department of Dance, “Threat, Defense, and Absence: Ali Moini’s My Paradoxical Knives and the U.S. ‘Muslim Travel Ban’”
2019 - University of California, Los Angeles, Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, “Do Iranian Dancers Need Saving? Savior Spectatorship and the Production of Iranian Dancers as ‘Objects of Rescue’”
2019 - University of California, Davis, Cultural Studies Colloquium, “Do Iranian Dancers Need Saving? Savior Spectatorship and the Production of Iranian Dancers as ‘Objects of Rescue’”
2018 - University of California, Davis, Asian American Studies Brown Bag Series, “The Politics of Dance in the Iranian Diaspora”
2018 - Stanford University, Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity – Emancipatory Performance and Racial Formation Faculty Network, “Do Iranian Dancers Need Saving? Savior Spectatorship and the Production of Iranian Dancers as ‘Objects of Rescue’”
2018 - University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Theater Arts, Shahnameh and Beyond Symposium, Lecture and performance collaboration with Cynthia Ling Lee (Assistant Professor in Dance, UC Santa Cruz): “Bodies & Borders: Intercultural Exchanges between Kathak and Iranian Dance”
2018 - University of California, Berkeley – Dance Studies Working Group, “Sensorial Performatives: Choreographing the Contradictions of ‘New Generation’ Iranian Immigrants in Aisan Hoss’s The Pleasant Pain”
2016 - Stanford University, Feminisms & Queerings Working Group, “Queering Diasporic and Secular Temporalities in Amir Baradaran’s ‘Choreographies of the Social’”
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (SELECT)
2023 - Dance Studies Association - New Mobilities “on the Turn”? London, UK (Virtual Symposium)
Co-organizer of pre-formed panel: The Cultural and Geo-Politics of Dancing Bodies Across Transnational SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) Geographies
“Choreographing Liberation: Dance and Futurity in Iran’s Woman Life Freedom Uprising”
2023 - The Iranian Diaspora in Global Perspective UCLA Center Near Eastern Studies & SFSU Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies Joint Conference (Los Angeles, CA), “The Pleasant Pain: Performing ‘New Generation’ Iranian Immigrant Bittersweetness in Aisan Hoss’s Dance-Theatre.”
2022 - Dance Studies Association (Vancouver B.C), “Un/Yielding Transience: Performing Transcultural Explorations of Immigration and Homelessness.” Lecture-Demo/Workshop co-developed with choreographer Aisan Hoss.
2021 - Dance Studies Association (Rutgers University), “Queering the Gaze, Activating the Audience: Gender and Sexuality in Diasporic Iranian and ‘Oriental’ Dances.” Lecture-Demo/Workshop co-developed with artist-scholar Cynthia Ling Lee (UC Santa Cruz).
2020 - American Studies Association, “Protest in/and the Popular in South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA),” Roundtable. Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020 - Dance Studies Association (Vancouver B.C), “Queering the Gaze, Activating the Audience: Gender and Sexuality in Diasporic Iranian and ‘Oriental’ Dances.” Lecture-Demo/Workshop co-developed with artist-scholar Cynthia Ling Lee (UC Santa Cruz). Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2019 - National Women’s Studies Association (San Francisco, CA), “Queering the Neoliberal Gaze: Sensorial, Sonicity, and Islamic Repertoire in Aisan Hoss’s The Pleasant Pain,” lead organizer of panel: “Queering Il/legibility: Performing Otherwise Worlds”
2019 - American Studies Association (Honolulu, HI), “Transaction, Temporality, and Queer Relationality: Amir Baradaran’s Marry Me to the End of Love,” invited to pre-organized panel: “Visioning Radical Queer Futures: Transformative Practices of the Transnational Middle East”
2019 - Dance Studies Association (Northwestern University), “Threat, Defense, and Absence: Ali Moini’s My Paradoxical Knives and the U.S. ‘Muslim Travel Ban’,” lead organizer of panel: “Immersive Sites of Momentary Commons: Dancing Race, Sexuality, and Borders”
2018 - Ev’ry Body This Time: A Sexuality Studies Conference (University of California, Berkeley), “Transaction and Queer Temporalities: Amir Baradaran’s Marry Me to the End of Love,” invited to pre-organized panel: “Embodying Space: Towards A Queer Reading of Desire and Movement”
2018 - Pieces: Film & Media Studies Symposium (Stanford University), “(Not) Just a Piece of Cloth: Sensorial Performativity of the ‘Veil’ in Aisan Hoss’s Dance-Theater The Pleasant Pain”
2018 - Association for Asian American Studies (San Francisco, CA), “Transaction and Queer Temporalities: Amir Baradaran’s Marry Me to the End of Love,” lead organizer of panel: “West Asian American Performance, Art, and Politics”
2017 - American Society for Theatre Research (Atlanta, GA), “Choreographing Émigré Bittersweetness: Embracing the Contradictions of Young Iranian Émigrés in Aisan Hoss’s The Pleasant Pain,” as part of the working group: “(Re)presenting Muslim Bodies of Performance”
2017 - Congress on Research in Dance & Society of Dance History Scholars Joint Conference (Ohio State University), “Choreographing the Sensorial-Affective of Iranian Émigré Oral Histories,” co-organizer of panel: “Contemporary (Dis)placements: Choreographies of Émigré Bittersweetness, Colonial Retrograde, and Racialized Stillness”
2017 - Approaching Dance: Transdisciplinary Methodologies and Modalities of the Moving Body in Performance (CUNY, NYC), “Do Iranian Dancers Need Saving? Savior Spectatorship and the Production of Iranian Dancers as ‘Objects of Rescue’”
2016 - Congress on Research in Dance & Society of Dance History Scholars Joint Conference (Pomona College), “The Precarity of Enough-ness: Contemporary Iranian Dance & the Geo-Temporal Politics of Inclusion/Exclusion,”co-organizer of panel: “Dancing the Vulnerable, Illegible, and/or Impossible Migrant/Diasporic Subject”
2016 - Popular Culture Association & American Culture Association Joint Conference (Seattle, WA),““Be Brave, Be Bold, Be Free”: Iranian Dancer as Object of Rescue in the Film Desert Dancer”
2015 - Congress on Research in Dance & Society of Dance History Scholars Joint Conference (Athens, Greece),“Does Iranian Dance Need Saving? The Politics of Preservation in the 1st International Iranian Dance Conference 2012”
Awarded the SDHS Graduate Student Travel Award
2014 - American Society for Theatre Research (Baltimore, MD), “Queering Diasporic Temporalities in the Performance Works of Amir Baradaran,” as part of the working group: “Avant-Gardes, Otherwise: Performance, Aesthetics, and Experimentation in the Undercommons”
2014 - International Conference on Islamophobia Studies (UC Berkeley), “Fraught Frames of Freedom: French Representations of Émigré Iranian Dancer Afshin Ghaffarian”
2013 - Congress on Research in Dance & Society of Dance History Scholars Joint Conference (University of California, Riverside), “Dislocated Temporalities and Queer Intimacies: The Participatory Performances of Amir Baradaran”
2012 - Congress on Research in Dance (Albuquerque, NM), “The ‘Reformances’ of Afshin Ghaffarian”
2011 - Dance/Body at the Crossroads of Cultures (Univ. of Nicosia, Cyprus), “From Raqaas to Raqsandeh: Modernity, Globalization, and Shifting Formations of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Iranian Dance Performance”
2010 - Performance Studies International (Toronto, CA), “Iran’s Transnational Cyber-Counterpublic: The Case of the Green Movement”