Persepolis (Pārsa, Takht-e Jamshid or Chehel Minar) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE). Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid (Throne of Jamshid). The earliest remains of Persepolis date from around 515 BCE. To the ancient Persians, the city was known as Pārsa, which means "The City of Persians". Persepolis is a transliteration of the Greek Πέρσης πόλις (Persēs polis: "Persian city"). UNESCO declared the citadel of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979. (
Lake Urmia (Persian: دریاچه ارومیه Daryâcheh-ye Orumiyeh (or Oroumieh); Azerbaijani: ارومیه گولو , ارومیه گولی , or ; ancient name: Lake Matiene) is a salt lake in northwestern Iran, near Iran's border with Turkey. The lake is between the Iranian provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan, west of the southern portion of the similarly shaped Caspian Sea. It is the largest lake in the Middle East, and the third largest salt water lake on earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km² (2,000 mile²), 140 km (87 miles) length, 55 km (34 miles) width, and 16 m (52 ft) depth. (From Wikipedia)
Mohammad-Reza Shajarian (Persian: محمد رضا شجريان) (born September 23, 1940 in Mashhad, Iran) is an internationally and critically acclaimed Persian traditional singer, composer and ostad (master) of Persian music.He has been called "Iran's greatest living master of traditional Persian music." Shajarian is also known for his skills in Persian calligraphy, and humanitarian activities.
Shajarian has collaborated with Parviz Meshkatian, Mohammad Reza Lotfi, Hossein Alizadeh, and Faramarz Payvar. He is recognised as a skilled singer in the challenging traditional Dastgah style. In 1999 UNESCO in France presented him with the Picasso Award and in 2006 with the UNESCO Mozart Medal.
Encouraged by his elder brother, he learned to play the tar and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964. The following year, he started his studies at the National Conservatory in Tehran under Habibollah Salehi and Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi. While at the conservatory, he also studied Western classical music and the violin, which led to his collaboration with various orchestras under the direction of Hossein Dehlavi. Some of his other eminent teachers were Abdollah Davami, from whom he learned the Radif, and Master Sa'id Hormozi, who taught him the setar. While attending the College of Fine Arts at Tehran University, Lotfi became the student of Master Nour-Ali Boroumand. He also worked at the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music, both as a soloist and a conductor. His other accomplishments were teaching at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, researching folk music for National Radio and Television, and appearing at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After graduating in 1973, Lotfi joined the faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University. He continued his collaboration with Radio and Television and co-founded the Shayda Ensemble. Between 1978 and 1980, Lotfi became the Head of the School of Music at Tehran University. He served as the director of the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music and the Chavosh Conservatory. In 1984 Lotfi was invited by Fondazione Cini to participate in a seminar and perform concerts in Italy where he resided for two years. He has been living in the United States since 1986 and has performed widely throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. A prolific musician, he has made numerous recordings both as a solo artist and with major Iranian musicians such as, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Hossein Alizadeh, and Parviz Meshkatian. Lotfi is one of the greatest contemporary masters of the tar and setar. He is among the major figures who, in the past twenty years, have revolutionized the Persian traditional (classical) music. His innovative approach of combining the classical with folk elements, both in terms of music and technique, has injected a new vitality into a very old tradition. His original creativity and the deep-rooted emotional quality of his playing have made him the father of a new aesthetics in Persian music. (From Wikipedia)
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi
Mohammad-Rezā Lotfi (Persian: محمد رضا لطفی , born 1947 in Gorgan, Iran) is a Persian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar.
Encouraged by his elder brother, he learned to play the tar and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964. The following year, he started his studies at the National Conservatory in Tehran under Habibollah Salehi and Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi. While at the conservatory, he also studied western classical music and the violin which led to his collaboration with various orchestras under the direction of Hossein Dehlavi. Some of his other eminent teachers were Abdollah Davami, from whom he learned the Radif, and Master Sa'id Hormozi, who taught him the setar. While attending the College of Fine Arts at Tehran University, Lotfi became the student of Master Nour-Ali Boroumand. He also worked at the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music, both as a soloist and a conductor. His other accomplishments were teaching at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, researching folk music for National Radio and Television, and appearing at the Shiraz Arts Festival. After graduating in 1973, Lotfi joined the faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University. He continued his collaboration with Radio and Television and co-founded the Shayda Ensemble. Between 1978 and 1980, Lotfi became the Head of the School of Music at Tehran University. He served as the director of the Center for the Preservation and Propagation of Traditional Iranian Music and the Chavosh Conservatory. In 1984 Lotfi was invited by Fondazione Cini to participate in a seminar and perform concerts in Italy where he resided for two years. He has been living in the United States since 1986 and has performed widely throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. He finally returned to Iran a few years ago. A prolific musician, he has made numerous recordings both as a solo artist and with major Iranian musicians such as, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, Hossein Alizadeh, and Parviz Meshkatian. Lotfi is one of the greatest contemporary masters of the tar and setar. He is among the major figures who, in the past twenty years, have revolutionized the Persian traditional (classical) music. His innovative approach of combining the classical with folk elements, both in terms of music and technique, has injected a new vitality into a very old tradition. His original creativity and the deep-rooted emotional quality of his playing have made him the father of a new aesthetics in Persian music. (From Wikipedia)
Born in 1937 in Tehran, Iran, Parviz Tanavoli is one of Iran's most renowned and successful artists. Parvis studied at the Tehran School of Arts, the Academia di Belle Arti in Carrara and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy. Parviz was one of the founding members of Saqqakhaneh, an artistic movement which began in the early 1960's in Iran. He was the Head of the Sculpting Department at Tehran University until 1979; he was also part of the faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Hamline University in St Paul Minnesota. He has now retired from teaching, living and working between Vancouver and Tehran.
Parviz has exhibited in numerous museums and art galleries around the world and his works feature in numerous public and private collections, such as permanent collections of major museums including: the British Museum, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; New York University Art Collection; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran.
Heech
Composed of three Farsi characters, the single word heech literally translates to "nothing". This term haunts the modern man and reflects feelings of unworthiness, of frustration and of powerlessness that permeate so much of the writing of contemporary literature.
Parviz's use of the heech underscores the transforming power of his art. In the West, existentialist convention prods us to read "nothingness" as a synonym for despair; but the heech in Tanavoli's work is more synonymous with creativity itself: it is the void filled by the artist's imagination, the "nothing" that through his shaping hand becomes "something". Mysticism enhances Tanavoli's fascination with the heech, but, as he himself acknowledges, he was also drawn to its calligraphic shape because of its resemblance to the human body. If the word itself suggests melancholy, Tanavoli's heech sculptures are joyful works. They stand, sit or recline as sensuously eloquent reminders of the plastic nature of Persian calligraphy. (From Candlestar)
Mashhad (Persian: مشهد Mashhad, Arabic: مشهد Mašhad, English: The Place of Martyrdom), is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world. It is also the only major Iranian city with an Arabic name. It is located 850 kilometres (530 mi) east of Tehran, at the center of the Razavi Khorasan Province close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Its population was 2,427,316 at the 2006 population census.
Now Mashhad is notably known as the resting place of the Imam Reza. A shrine was later built there to commemorate the Imam, which in turn gave rise to increasing demographic development.
Mashhad is also known as the city of Ferdowsi, the Iranian poet of Shahnameh, which is considered to be the national epic of Iran. (From Wikipedia)
A pioneer in filmmaking and literature, Ebrahim Golestan has influenced generations of Iranians in various fields of art for more than half a century. Golestan published his first collection of short stories entitled, "Azar, the Last Month of autumn" in 1948.
Golestan began journalism as a writer, then editor, early in the 40’s, and photography as a freelancer with news organizations in 1951. Later he produced several landmark documentaries and feature films such as "A Fire" (1961), "Wave, Coral, Rock" (1959/1962), and "Marlik Hills" (1963). His first narrative film “The Mudbrick and the Mirror” (1963/4) is considered by many historians as the first of the social realism wave in Iranian cinema. At the same time, he continued to write and publish his work in fiction. “Hunting the Shadow” (1955), “The Brook, the Wall, and the Thirsty One” (1967), “Tide & Fog” (1969) and “Secrets of the Treasures at the Ghost Valley (Asarare Ganje Darehye Jenni)” (1971/3), “The Cock” (1974) are examples of his published works of fiction; and “The Words Spoken” (1995), a selection of his lectures, literary criticism and interviews, and some narrations for films.
Golestan has made valuable contributions as a translator of great works of literature such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and several of Hemingway's stories.
Golestan’s feature film, “Secrets of the Treasures at the Ghost Valley”, was banned before and after the 1979 revolution. The film presents an insightful, thought provoking account of dynamics of various social strata of Iranian society at a historical juncture, best described by the director as “the twisted image of a twisted situation”. Tirgan 2011 is proud to present this influential and rarely seen masterpiece of Iranian cinema. (From Tirgan)
Bashu, the Little Stranger (Persian: باشو غریبه کوچک), is a 1986 Iranian drama film directed by Bahram Beizai. The film was produced in 1986, and was released in 1989. This multi-ethnic film was the first Iranian film to make use of the northern dialect of Persian, Gilaki, in a serious context rather than comic relief. (Susan Taslimi playing the main character is Gilaki herself).
The film is about a young boy from Khuzestan province, in the south of Iran, during the Iran–Iraq War. His parents are killed in a bombing raid on his home village and he escapes on a cargo truck to the north. Eventually he gets off and finds refuge on the farm of a Gilaki woman, Na'i, who has two young children of her own. Initially, Na'i tries to shoo Bashu away, but later takes pity on him and leaves food out for him. Although Na'i is initially ambivalent toward Bashu, and he is initially suspicious of her, they come to trust one another, and Bashu becomes a member of the family, even calling Na'i "mom". Being that Bashu speaks Arabic, while Na'i and her children speak Gilaki, they have trouble communicating with each other, although Bashu is able to speak and read Persian (for example in the scene where he picks up the school text book, reading a passage from it in an attempt to appease the children fighting). In a gesture of reciprocation and perhaps love, Bashu cares for Na'i when she falls ill, as she had done for him, crying for her and beating a drum in prayer.
Throughout the film, Na'i maintains correspondence with her husband, a war veteran looking for employment, who has been gone for quite some time. She tells him about Bashu, and implores him to return home in time to help with the harvest. Bashu becomes Na'i's helper on the farm, and even accompanies her to the bazaar to sell her goods. Throughout the film, Bashu sees visions of his dead family members, which cause him to wander off. Ultimately, however, he and Na'i are always reunited.
The other adults in the village harangue Na'i about taking Bashu in, often deriding his dark skin and different language, and making comments about washing the dark off of his skin. In addition to the village adults, the school age children taunt and beat Bashu, although the children prove ultimately to be more willing to accept Bashu than the adults. In one scene in which he is being taunted, Bashu picks up a school book and reads aloud a passage stating, "We are all the children of Iran." Before this point, the children had assumed Bashu to be either mute or stupid.
In the end, Na'i's husband returns home with no money and missing an arm, having been forced to take on dangerous work that is never identified. He and Na'i argue over her having kept Bashu against his wishes. Bashu comes to her defense, challenging the strange man to identify himself. Na'i's husband tells Bashu that he is his father, and upon this realization, they embrace as though they were always a part of the same family. The film ends with the entire family, including children, running into the farm field, making loud noises together to scare away a troublesome boar. (From Wikipedia)
Bahram Bayzai
Bahrām Beyzāi (also spelt Bahrām Beizai, Bahrām Beyzaie, Persian: بهرام بیضائی, born 26 December 1938 in Tehran) is an Iranian film director, theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, film editor, producer, and researcher.
Beyzai is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes other pioneering directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Sales, and Parviz Kimiavi. The filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialog, references to traditional Persian art and culture and allegorical story-telling often dealing with political and philosophical issues. (From Wikipedia)
Behrouz Gharibpour (born 1950) is a renowned Iranian theatre director and pioneer of traditional Persian puppet theatre. He studied theatre at Tehran University and at Dramatic Arts Academy in Rome (Silvio Damico). He founded Tehran and Esfahan puppet theatre centres and changed the Tehran’s slaughterhouse into a great Cultural Centre in Tehran. He has experienced writing and directoring in fields such as theatre, puppet theatre, cinema, and T.V. Gharibpour is known for his research projects on Iranian puppetry during Qajar era.
