By Faranak Amidi BBC 100 Women
March 8, 2024
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Paramida is among the world’s most well-known DJs from Iran
Mixed-gender raves are unlawful in Iran, however they happen removed from the scrutiny of the ethical police anyway, and a few feminine DJs who make audiences dance break taboos and push cultural boundaries. Some individuals are increasing it.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 remodeled the nation’s cultural life.
Pop music was banned because it was deemed not revolutionary, so many musicians fled. At the identical time, it was declared sinful, or haram, for ladies to sing.
The thriving pop and cabaret scenes disappeared nearly in a single day. Still, behind closed doorways some issues continued as earlier than.
“Indecent” music cassettes and CDs had been smuggled from abroad and secretly delivered to individuals’s properties. Then, after dinner, the lights had been dimmed and the lounge changed into a dance flooring.
“I used to be a dancing star each time Mehmouni [family party]” says Paramida, at present a Berlin-based DJ, producer, and file label proprietor.
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Paramida grew up clubbing in Iran throughout his college days and in Germany throughout his summer time holidays.
Paramida’s mom left Iran as a result of she didn’t need her daughter to reside in a rustic the place “ladies are handled so poorly.” The requirement to put on a hijab was simply one in every of many restrictions she opposed.
She settled in Germany, however was pressured to return to Germany in 2002 for household causes, and Paramida attended college in Tehran for 4 years. Eventually, she began attending underground events in addition to dancing at her home.
“We all break up up into vehicles, the boys in some vehicles, the women in different vehicles, and we drove out of city. Then we arrange the music and lights and everybody danced. And that was it,” Paramida says.
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Paramida was born in Germany, the place her mom left Tehran to lift her daughter in a freer nation.
Starting within the late Nineteen Nineties, a brand new sort of celebration tradition started to develop in Iran. The arrival of unlawful satellites led to the emergence of music channels corresponding to MTV, and shortly an underground rave scene.
“The first time I went to a celebration, the DJ was taking part in home music,” recollects Nesa Azadika, a 40-year-old DJ born and raised in Tehran.
“I at all times checked out him and thought, ‘I need that job.'”
Just a few years later, Nesa turned one of many first Iranian ladies to DJ at underground “free events,” gatherings of home and techno music held in non-public invitation-only venues.
Image supply, Nesa Azadikhah
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Nesa Azadika is a pioneer in Tehran’s dance scene
In the early days, events had been primarily held within the ski village of Shemshak, nicknamed “Sibiza” after the Spanish island of Ibiza and its world-famous membership scene.
But partying in Iran is a criminal offense. Although not talked about within the Penal Code, individuals are continuously arrested for underground gatherings and charged with consuming alcohol and socializing with the alternative intercourse, crimes that may end up in fines, jail phrases, or caning. .
It’s unclear what number of such arrests happen every year, however native information companies say 300 partygoers had been detained at one underground occasion final November.
And only a few days in the past, on March 5, it was reported that no less than 11 college students at a prime college had been arrested at a mixed-gender celebration and obtained suspensions of as much as three semesters.
“My mother and father at all times instructed me that if the police took me to a celebration, I might be in bother, so I turned very cautious,” Nesa says.
Neither she nor Paramida have ever been arrested for attending a rave. But rising up with a relentless sense of disaster could have formed the Iranian music maker’s life.
Image supply, Nesa Azadikhah
That’s how the 2 DJs have been a part of progressive requires change in Iran for the previous 45 years, together with after the loss of life in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old accused of carrying a hijab. It’s one of many causes I really feel linked to the ladies’s motion. It’s too free.
Palamida mentioned she was moved by the hundreds of protesters chanting “ladies, life, freedom” as protests unfold throughout Iran in 2022.
“that [movement] In reality, it gave me hope that there’s a bond between all of us ladies,” she says.
Together with fellow Iranian DJ Aida, Nesa launched the Woman, Life, Freedom Project, a group of digital music by Iranian feminine artists. This is along with one other initiative she runs referred to as Deep House Tehran, a platform that showcases the work of underground digital music producers.
Both Nesa and Palamida really feel that in a historically spiritual nation like Iran, ladies’s participation in underground digital events is a political assertion.
“Most of the issues we’re fascinated about are taboo or forbidden, so after we begin doing these issues we’re basically breaking the foundations. Those acts are thought of insubordination. It turns into an act of protest,” Nesa instructed BBC 100 Women.
“The indisputable fact that I can do one thing that’s forbidden to many ladies in Iran makes me a residing protest,” Paramida says.
Image supply, Nesa Azadikhah
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Deep House Tehran venture showcases the work of the area’s underground producers
The international dance music trade is notoriously male-dominated, nevertheless it was even worse when Paramida and Nesa began DJing within the 2010s.
“Sexism remains to be there, it is simply totally different,” says Nesa, who has seen the scene change as Iran’s first profitable feminine DJ. There are at present no less than 10 extra feminine DJs within the nation’s underground rave world, she says.
“I’ve at all times been instructed, ‘I am unable to do that as a result of I’m a girl, I am unable to try this,’ however I believed, ‘I can do it, and I’ll strive.'” Paramida says. .
She is at present the resident DJ at Berlin’s internationally well-known techno membership, Panorama Bar in Berghain.
Nesa goals of taking part in in Europe as properly. Like many different Iranian artists, her visa software has been denied for a number of years.
Image supply, Nesa Azadikhah
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Nesa utilized for a visa to construct a world profession, however was repeatedly denied.
She lastly acquired the prospect to make it internationally. “In 2017, she was invited to play in Yerevan, Armenia. The membership was busy and she or he obtained nice suggestions,” she says.
She at present has a one-year residency in France by means of the Global Talent Visa Scheme.
“I really feel like I’ve to work even tougher and quicker now. There’s extra competitors right here,” Nessa mentioned whereas getting ready for a gig in Liverpool.
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Paramida at present performs in golf equipment and festivals all over the world.
Palamida at present performs in golf equipment and festivals from Japan to Brazil. She met BBC 100 Women in Ibiza, the place she was getting ready for a gig at one of many island’s well-known golf equipment. However, she has not returned to Iran since 2006.
“One of my largest goals is to return to Tehran and have a celebration!” she says. “How great would that be?”
Nesa additionally shares that sentiment.
“It feels liberating to play exterior of Iran. I haven’t got to fret about being arrested,” she says.
“But no different place has the ambiance of an underground Iranian celebration.”
Paramida will make his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix debut on March 9 – you’ll be able to hear right here