ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on social and performance dynamics of the Fourth Jasmine Festival in 2002. It examines the ways in which participants view and represent themselves, and provides a microcosmic example of how social hierarchy, music practice and 'doing gender'. The Jasmine Festival is a weeklong festival of women's music that began in 1999, one of first national festivals of women's music in Iran. The degree to which the Jasmine Festival and similar events are regarded as empowering or otherwise depends largely on cultural and historical perspective of the viewer, as well as their general positioning in relation to Iranian social hierarchies. The situation of music has changed dramatically since early 1980s and by the summer of 2002, when the Fourth Jasmine Festival took place, government restrictions on music had eased considerably. Given current government restrictions, some artists are concerned that their participation may signal complicity with state-imposed gendering of musical spheres and thereby compromise their artistic or professional standing.
