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The project was also highly gendered in its portrayal as a nation: whereas for centuries public dance had mostly been associated with young men, the troupe stressed had a modern style of dancing in which women were in the public limelight. In doing so, the Studio for the Revival of the Classical Arts presented a sharp turn from the past state of dance, which their members saw as degenerate and base rather than a form of art. In Nesta’s words, they instead set out to “restore” dance to the “stages.” In this article, I explore how the studio invented a style of Iranian dance that was completely modern and yet presented as deeply rooted in the past, in the process inventing tradition and re-imagining dance culture in modern.
