Iran is a very youthful state, full of contemporary ideas and energy, particularly in the arts.
The glum theocracy doesn't have as much of a grip on things as is propagandized here in the west. Publicly, yes, but its grip is a little like the old Soviets-- a joke in private where women wear sexy clothes, smoke and drink and natter away on their cell phones. Ditto the guys. So what else is new for people under 30? They're people first, after all, as you point out, Jim.
70 percent of its population is under 30 years of age.
I just heard a little article on Iranian culture on NPR yesterday, and I have myself known several Iranians, two of them poets and translators.
More art by Kevork Mourad:
http://www.kevorkmourad.com/
SPEAKING OF UNITING THE ARTS!
(paste from Kevork Mourad's website)
Kevork Mourad, an artist of Armenian origin, was born in 1970 in Aleppo, Syria. After his education in Syria, he was accepted to the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia, where he received his MFA in 1996. He has exhibited widely in Armenia and the United States. Early on, he developed a technique of spontaneous painting, in which he shares the stage with musicians, his art created in counterpoint to their music. His first performance of live drawing was at the Gyumri Biennial in 1997 with trombonist David Minassian. Since then his collaborations have included a live performance with Djivan Gasparyan at Cooper Union in April 2001, and a benefit show for the Coalition to Ban Land mines at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, in tandem with George Winston. He performed at Juilliard at the “Machine and Beyond” Festival with Kinan Azmeh, in a project based on the epic of Gilgamesh. The same piece was also performed at the Chelsea Museum of Art in New York. In 2004 he performed with the Latin Jazz Band SYOTOS at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He appeared at the Tenri Cultural Center and at Angel Orensantz with members of the Silk Road Ensemble. In the spring of 2005, he joined Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, with which he has performed at the Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, and most recently, the Nara Museum, in Nara, Japan. In March 2006, he performed with the percussion group Tambuco in Morelia, Mexico, where he was the featured artist at the Morelia Chess Festival, and is currently collaborating with composer Ken Ueno and violist Kim Kashkashian.
( end paste)
--Z
