Persian classical dance

Classical Persian dance is a style of concert dance which evolved from courtroom dance. The Qajar dynasty, which reigned from 1795 to 1925, had an important influence on Persian dance. In this period, a style of dance began to be called "classical Persian dance". Dancers performed artistic dances in the court of the Shah for entertainment purposes such as coronations, marriage celebrations, and Norouz celebrations (Iranian new year). The rise of the Qadjars liberalizes people's attitudes toward dancing, although it remained in the royal court and among the elite and bourgeois families. The court dancers elevated respect for dance to an art form. Costuming generally consisted of loosely fitted long dress with long sleeves, worn with a jacket. The jacket extended over the sides of the hips and was either worn open or closed. The Qadjar dancers wore pants under the dress. Persian pant was cut narrow, loose the bottom and was cuffed. Sometimes a Turkish harem pant was worn, extremely full and gathered tight at the ankles. The fabrics had flower patterns and were bright in color. The Shah rewarded performers with jewels, so many costumes had elaborate gold embroidery, pearl beading and gemstones. Upon the head was worn a plume, or aigret, a small egret shaped ornament, or a small paisley-shaped hat adorned with jewels, pearls and a feather.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Classical Persian dance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Persian classical dance is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶