Yet Another Intermission Hop

We had many presenters who have travelled from all over the world - sadley, not all of our invited speakers were able to get visas to come here. So, we suggested that they might wish to provide us with some information about that which they wished to present. Reza Dabirinezhad and Mohammad Hekmat responded to this, and so Museobunny would like to offer you a little link to their ideas.

Following is a sendspace link to their complete article:

The Intangible Heritage of Iran

Here is the abstract:

As museums tend to pass from an object oriented era to a subject oriented one, intangible heritage comes to be a theme for many programmers to explore; museum managers began collecting theories about subjective programs and introduced them. Iran is a country of prolonged history and an integrated diverse culture. It is this diversity which brings up new concerns and questions for cultural programmers. Some of these concerns are:

- People’s lack of familiarity with various tribes’ cultural treasure or existing rituals at different regions of Iran,
- Young generation’s reluctance to acknowledge intangible heritage due to unfamiliarity,
- Creating diversity and more social interaction at museums while using intangible heritage to entertain visitors.

These concerns partly attracted managers’ attention within last recent years. Therefore museums took advantage of such change of trend to incorporate cultural objectives. Our efforts in this article are to introduce a set of executed programs in fields of marketing and interpretation of intangible heritage at museum-palace of Niavaran, Tehran. Design, executive methods and influence of each of these programs can encourage dynamism and create job opportunities at museums.

1- Arash-Khaani: Arash is the name of a mythical Iranian character, an archer who saves the country using his art of archery. This symbolic character has been subject of many poems and artworks in Iran. In this program we created a remarkable entertaining atmosphere to narrate and display myth using several local artists, ritual combat performers and celebrities as well as collecting combat ritual records. Objective(s): identifying local performing groups, nurturing national union, creating a fusion of arts to vitalize and entertain the audience

2- Mahdismaa, is a symbolic fairy creature among people of south and west of Iran. This myth was an inspiration to plan a performance using two groups from two different tribes who reconstructed marriage and funeral rituals and celebration traditions to offer a festive combination of legends, rituals and music, performed by historical buildings of the museum.

3- Siavushaan, Shahnameh is the most significant mythical book to Iranians, of which many tales are of vital influence in Iranian national culture and among Iranian tribes. During years, there have appeared many narrative forms among each tribe to tell these tales. One of them is a story of a hero in Shahnameh called “Siavush”, known as Siavushaan. The tradition was to narrate the story in terms of a combination of Iranian ancient athletic performance and music. a traditional setting along with an Iranian feast was provided as well.

4- Soorgaani festival is a collection of rituals themed about joy and merry- making. This festival was held at international tourist day with 30 groups performing music and dance at Niavaran museum-palace.
As a result, Niavaran museum-palace now is a place to hold ritual/musical shows from all around the country, especially Tehran. It is a permanent cultural center at which major concerts are taking place.