By Natasha Collishaw
The strobe lights flash and techno music pulsates from the speakers at the Hampton Conference Centre, but this is no ordinary pop concert.
Two girls with glittery hip scarves glide onto stage, making ample use of their arms and occasionally swivelling their hips.
It resembles belly dancing, but the motions are softer. The 900-plus crowd of Iranians screams its approval, calling out in Farsi.
After a brief introduction, Mansour, the ultra-popular Persian pop singer from California – whose music is a permanent fixture at weddings and soccer games in Persian communities everywhere – steps onto the stage.
He has recently grown his hair long and shaggy and his face is scruffy, following the trend of many contemporary Western pop singers. He is wearing leather pants and a silk shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and fluorescent red shoes.
There are only about 1,200 Iranians in Ottawa and most of them seem to be at this concert. It is Sunday night and many among them have to work or go to school early tomorrow morning. But most stay until the concert’s end at 12:30 am.
“Events like these are important to this community because many people have been forced to leave Iran, not by choice,” says Shahriar Ayoubzadeh, known to the Ottawa Persian community as DJ Shahriar.
“And they are homesick.”
These include persecuted religious minorities such as Jews and Baha’is and political opponents of the Islamic regime.
That is why Ayoubzadeh helps run Iranian social events at, or often below, the actual cost.
Ottawa’s small Iranian population makes it difficult to attract stars such as Mansour, unlike Toronto or Tehranto, nicknamed after Tehran, the capital city of Iran for their high population of Iranians.
The 100,000-plus Iranians in the city make it very easy for event promoters. But Ayoubzadeh still feels that his job is important.
“Even though we are Canadians and we are fully integrated into Canadian culture, it is important to preserve a little of what we left behind,” Azoubzadeh says.
“At least the good part of the culture.”
The Iranian government seems to have a different opinion of what constitutes the “good part” of Iranian culture.
They banned Mansour and several other pop singers from entering Iran, perhaps because of their tremendous popularity and the heavy Western influence present in their music. It is even questionable whether Mansour represents Iranian culture.
Much of his popularity seems to do with his embrace of the Western culture.
He left Iran at the age of five when the Revolution gave the Iranian clergy a monopoly on political power. He has since spent most of his life in the large Persian community in Southern California.
When he introduces his song Dorooghgoo, meaning liar, he jokes in Farsi that his ex-girlfriend always accused him of telling lies.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard the same thing from your boyfriends and girlfriends,” he says.
The audience laughs hysterically at his comments, even though the discussion of relationships outside the context of marriage is traditionally frowned upon in the culture.
It is funnier than it would be to another audience because it is discussing something that is still edgy for some Iranians.
Despite its Western influences, a Mansour concert is a far cry from a Britney Spears performance.
In some cases, three generations of families come together to witness and participate in the spectacle.
Five-year-olds run around until the early hours of the morning and heavy-set grandmothers use their elbows to get a spot near the front of the stage, barring anyone else from entering.
While there are dancing girls, their dancing is graceful rather than sexual and they are modestly dressed.
Whether young or old, males and females alike profess their love for Mansour and try to touch his hand. One father even stops Mansour in the middle of his performance and asks him to take a picture with his daughter, then and there, since he has to leave early.
Mansour politely declines, but squeezes the hand of the young girl.
At the end of the performance, there is a meet-and-greet with Mansour, open to all.
The English-speaking bouncers fume and threaten, but they cannot get the Iranians to line up single file.
The concert highlights one aspect of Iranian culture that has survived the transition from the motherland-the intense desire to come together.
Whether it is Iranian culture or a slick impersonation of American culture that unites them seems to be irrelevant.
Having the majority of Iranians in the city participate in an event creates a certain energy.
Like many other cultural communities, the Iranians realize that a group is more than just the sum of its parts.