"Memory of a Phoenix Feather": Iranian Storytelling Traditions and Contemporary Theater

TL;DRAbstract

oday in the West, we don't much stumble upon itinerant storytellers on the streets or JL in cafes, bringing to life Western legends and stories from Beowulf, Chaucer, Ovid, or the Bible. And yet the dramatization of the stories and legends of the Iranian people is exactly what hap pens in the streets and cafes of Iran. Storytelling is the oldest oral art form. From the cave-dwellers who gathered around the fire to recount or reenact the day's hunting stories, to the most sophisticated theatrical extravaganzas, humans have communicated their stories to con nect, inspire, heal, and educate. Each culture has its own storytelling traditions through which their national legends, myths, epic and folk tales, and sagas are retold. Iranian traditions of storytelling date back to pre-Islamic times, before the seventh-century a.d. Arab invasion that brought Islam to the Zoro astrian Persian empire. They are too numerous to describe here, but the most common forms of public storytelling still prac

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