Break Dancers

Mellat Park, Tehran

from MrSun
20-Feb-2011
Iranians of the Day | Photos
Balatarin
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Milan

Is this the old Park Kurosh?

by Milan on Sun Feb 20, 2011 09:41 PM PST

Love these kids, so athletic! If it's Park Kurosh, we used to hang out there in early 70's, playing Shartee Football, until our bodies glowed in the dark. Then a big bastani and a 7 Up. Life was good:)


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divaneh

The whole world may let go off break dance

by divaneh on Sun Feb 20, 2011 05:50 PM PST

but not Iran.


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aliakbar

Nice!

by aliakbar on Sun Feb 20, 2011 04:30 PM PST

Awesome to see this freedom of expression in a country so hell bent on preventing it. Breakdancing on CONCRETE no less. 


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Sanaz Raji

Nice...

by Sanaz Raji on Sun Feb 20, 2011 06:55 AM PST

But it doesn't beat these breakdancers from 1991:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g-g7nBzg30&playnex...

The song, "Be My Lover" by La Bouche, takes me back to my college days in 1996. What a blast from the past!  

One other final point-- there is a strong hip-hop culture in Iran from the mid 80s until now. It would be wonderful if someone would start producing more scholarly works on this. The video that I enclosed is of a wedding reception party, 1991 in what seems to be a middle to lower middle class household. Four young men engage in breakdancing and the crowd seems to enjoy their efforts. I heard from a friend of mine that in the early 1990s, in the working class areas of Tehran, it was common to see breakdance competitions happen between various individuals and/or groups from the neighborhood in local parks. To make sure that they wouldn't be caught by the police, these competitions would have their own people guarding various entry points to the park.

My friend indicated that these competitions and being skilled breakdance artists were popular among working class Iranian males as a means of attracting upper class Iranian women. Occasionally, middle class men would participate, but in the early 1990s, it seems that hip-hop culture in Iran was strictly a working class affair. 

 


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