Iran has a long tradition of female singers. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, there were a number of female singers, such as Hayden, Pari Malek or Googosh, who even became internationally known. But after the Islamic Revolution, the influence of the clergy increased rapidly. The opportunities for female singers to perform were increasingly restricted, until women were finally banned from singing in public.
The legal situation has hardly changed since the 1980s. Public performances and publications are subject to approval. Permits for female solo performances are granted very rarely, and for corresponding publications (recordings) almost not at all. Violations are punishable by fines or imprisonment and, in exceptional cases, lashes.
Nonetheless, there are women in Iran who try to be artistic singers. Through his work and research, photographer Stephan Lucka got to know classical female singers, hip-hop artists, pop and jazz singers, and traditional female artists and photographed them for the 2018 photo series "Forbidden Voices".
A portrait series by Stephan with protagonists in the Iranian diaspora in Germany, who describe their view of the revolution, will soon be published in the magazine "Chrismon Plus".
„Freedom is the least I want“, Meshkat says to me before she goes to the microphone and sings one of her self-composed English songs.
We‘re at an illegal jam session somewhere in a private apartment in northern Tehran. Meshkat is a singer, 27 years old, but freedom to sing in public, she hasn‘t. Women are forbidden to sing in public in Iran.
Nevertheless there are ambitious singers in Iran. I am a musician myself and could hardly imagine what a singing ban really means.
Therefore I accompanied the singers: To gigs, illegal jam sessions, studio gigs, to music school and home.
But it‘s about more than music. The singers stand for a young, slowly changing Iranian society, in search of a new cultural identity. In the paradox between tradition and modernity, in which the static construct of religion and state faces the dynamics of globalization.
Click to enlarge photos.
