{"id":7110,"date":"2022-02-15T08:46:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T06:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=7110"},"modified":"2022-12-17T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T09:04:08","slug":"baba-karam-lessons-artist-amitis-motevalli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/baba-karam-lessons-artist-amitis-motevalli\/","title":{"rendered":"Baba Karam Lessons: Artist Amitis Motevalli"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Los Angeles artist Amitis Motevalli presents her Baba Karam rendition for the first time in 2011.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Amitis Motevalli<\/p>\n

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In Baba Karam Lessons,<\/em> a performance series inspired by the lineage of Adrian Piper\u2019s Funk Lessons,<\/em> I teach audiences how to do a popular Iranian party dance caricaturing working-class street toughs from the south side \u201cslums\u201d of Tehran; the dance, typically by women in suits and hats, is complexly layered within Iranian culture in the way that it questions class, gender and sexuality. The dance is a caricature of something danced by street tough men called \u201cjahel.\u201d Throughout the years, the dance has often been performed by women, in drag to fit the image of the jahel. The dance is complex and layered resisting gender and class constrictions.<\/p>\n

I have presented Baba Karam Lessons<\/em> in various settings since their inception, in a Santa Monica gallery in 2011, where the installation for the dance included all of the costume items and two mirrors with directions for the dance written on them to teach a largely American audience the dance.\u00a0 Later in 2016 came a planned dance performance at Discostan, a SWANA club night at a local bar in Cypress Park that draws both a SWANA diasporic and general art audience,\u00a0 which included a group of five artists of various cultures and gender-identities in full costume to whom I taught the dance, engaging a party audience teaching and activating all people in dancing Baba Karam.\u00a0 In 2018, I presented Baba Karam Lessons at the Hammer Museum as the character of Amir Khoshgele for an invited public program for the Adrian Piper: Concepts and Intuitions exhibition. The performance started outside as I walked and interacted with people in the street (many of whom were well familiar with Baba Karam) in full character on Westwood Boulevard in Tehrangeles and led them to the performance and lesson inside the museum.<\/p>\n