In some Arab countries, dancing is popular, varying by town, village, or nomad tribe. In the towns, dancing is generally reserved for special occasions, chiefly Western social dances. On the other hand, villages have such favourites as the dabkah. The dabkah is danced mainly by men and is quite common in festivities in the area between northern Syria and southern Israel; for instance, the Druze (sectarian Arab communities located in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel) are very fond of it. The performers dance in a straight line, holding handkerchiefs high in the air, while the first dancer in the row gives the sign for stepping or jumping. Among the Bedouin almost any pretext suffices for dancing, although, since the mid-20th century, dancing has been practiced most often at weddings and similar festivities. Usually two male dancers, or two rows of male dancers, repeatedly advance toward each other or the audience and retire. Of this basic figure there are numerous variations that give the different dances their names.

Turkey

The Turks are also lovers of music and dance and frequently sing and dance when they meet. There is no single national dance popular throughout the country; dances vary in the numbers required, some being for solo performance, others designed for pairs or groups, though nearly all have instrumental accompaniment. As illustration of the possibilities of a basic step, there are at least 40 variations of the group dance known as bar, a chain dance. Again, several folk dances have characteristics akin to pantomime, breaking up into five main types of imitation: village life, nature, combat, courtship, and animals or birds.

Opera is popular in Turkey, reflected in a long tradition of invitations to foreign companies, and the musical theatre, which frequently includes dancing, is also widespread. On the other hand, classical ballet was unknown until the late 20th century, when a school of ballet was opened by foreign teachers with government encouragement. Although most of the ballet performances are in Istanbul, they are well received on tour.

Iran

In Iran a national dance company was formed with government support after World War II, and ancient customs were revived. Until it was closed in 1979, the Iranian ballet company was outstanding in the Muslim world, drawing on ancient war dances, fire-priest dances, dervish dances, and tribal folklore as well as on scenes and decor from painting, sculpture, and the rich imagery of classical Persian poetry. Various folk dances are likewise performed all over Iran; they are accompanied by music and reflect local traditions and customs. Some are mimetic, others erotic, others, again, war dances (chiefly in the mountain areas) and comic dances (usually with masks). Many of these are dying out as new tastes and customs evolve, and Iranian dance companies have tried to preserve some of these dying forms.

Arab countries

Contemporary Arabic theatre owes much to the imaginative daring of the Naqqāsh family in 19th-century Beirut, which was then under Turkish rule. Significantly, they were Christians, then better-educated and more cosmopolitan than Muslims, and they had the advantages of Beirut’s contacts with Europe and position as the headquarters of missionary activity. A Beirut Maronite (a Roman Catholic following the Syrio-Antiochene rite, widespread in the area), Mārūn al-Naqqāsh (died 1855), who knew French and Italian as well as Arabic and Turkish, adapted Molière’s L’Avare (“The Miser”) and presented it on a makeshift stage in Beirut in 1848. He did so before a select audience of foreign dignitaries and local notables, and he wrote his play in colloquial Arabic and revised the plot to suit the taste and views of his audience. Further, he changed the locale to an Arab town and Arabicized the names of the participants. Other touches included instrumental and vocal music and the playing of women’s roles by men, in the traditional manner. The above features characterized the Arabic theatre for about half a century. Al-Naqqāsh, together with his family, composed and presented two other musical plays, one based on Molière’s Tartuffe, the other on the story, in The Thousand and One Nights, of Abū al-Ḥasan, who became caliph for a day.

Soon the main centre of Arabic theatre moved to Egypt, whose comparatively tolerant autonomy offered an atmosphere for literary and artistic creativity more congenial than other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals and actors emigrated there, particularly after the anti-Christian riots of 1860 in Syria. Though a somewhat crippled Arabic theatre continued in Syria, its influence was carried into Egypt by émigrés and later spread to other Arabic-speaking regions. The number of theatres, a potentially large public, the munificence of Egypt’s rulers, increasing prosperity under British rule after 1882, and increasing education soon made Egypt the centre of Arabic theatre, a position it has successfully maintained since.

The colloquial Arabic of Egypt was increasingly employed in the theatre, and several companies toured the country and neighbouring parts. The composition of those companies was fluid, for the actors were prone to be fickle in their loyalties. Nevertheless, certain types of Egyptian theatre can be discerned in the late 19th century and during the early 20th. Some, like the company of Salāmah Ḥijāzī, used music to such an extent that their productions approached being labelled opera or operetta. Others, like that of ʿAlī al-Kassār, specialized in downright farce, expressed in revue form, with a Nubian hero, the “Barbarin,” who made a specialty of ridicule and mimicry. Yet others, like the company of Najīb al-Rīḥānī, oscillating between outright farce and comedy, skillfully depicted contemporary Egyptian manners; in particular, Najīb al-Rīḥānī created a character called Kish-Kish Bey, whose misadventures and unsolicited advice on every subject made him a classic creation. A conventional theatre sprang up in Egypt too, catering to a growing number of intellectuals and presenting dramas and tragedies in polished, literary Arabic. Its chief exponent was Jūrj Abyaḍ, who had spent time studying acting in Paris. In contrast, Yūsuf Wahbī’s National Troupe performed realistic plays, usually dramas or melodramas, using either colloquial or literary Arabic and sometimes a combination of both.

The plays performed by the Egyptian troupes and others in Arabic-speaking lands developed through three overlapping but distinguishable stages: adaptations, translations, and original plays. Adaptations came first in the 19th century (see above). Translations of established works appealed to a discriminating public, but original plays, part of the evolution of modern Arabic literature, reflected a growing interest in political and social problems. The decline of foreign influence and the arrival of political independence encouraged creativity, which, however much under European influence, has some original works to its credit. Two 20th-century Arabic playwrights, both Egyptian, were Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm, a sensitive shaper of both social and symbolic dramas, and Maḥmūd Taymūr, a novelist and comedy writer who struck deep into Egypt’s social problems.

Turkey

The development of the modern Turkish theatre strongly resembles its Arabic counterpart. In Istanbul, theatrical performances were not unusual among the diplomatic and international set, and some local Turks were acquainted with them. Nonetheless, Turkish plays for live actors—barring ortaoyunu—date only from 1839. The first Turkish playhouse was built in Pera (now Beyoğlu), significantly in the middle of the foreign and embassy quarter of Istanbul. Many of the actors were members of non-Muslim minorities, such as Armenians, and the first plays presented in Turkish were adaptations from the French, chiefly Molière. They were done during the 1840s, when music was an important item.

The Gedik Paşa Theatre, named for the area in Istanbul where it was located, was the first theatre in which Turkish plays were produced by native actors speaking in Turkish. The actors received a salary, and local writers presented their own plays. Originally built for foreign companies, the theatre was reconstructed in 1867 and reopened in 1868 for a Turkish company headed by an Armenian, Agop, who was later converted to Islam and changed his name to Yakup. For almost 20 years the Gedik Paşa Theatre was the dramatic centre of the city. Plays in translation were soon followed by original plays, several with a nationalist appeal, such as Namık Kemal’s Vatan yahut Silistre (“Fatherland”), which was first produced in 1873. The actors had to struggle against prejudice and the playwrights against censorship (some of them were imprisoned or exiled), but the Turkish theatre spread beyond Istanbul in the 1870s and ’80s to such places as Adana (in southern Anatolia) and Bursa (just south of Istanbul, across the Sea of Marmara).

After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, censorship was not relaxed, but interest in the theatre grew, particularly over political matters, and plays about the new constitution were written and performed. After the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923, the state subsidized several theatre companies and a school for dramatic arts, and an opera house was built in Ankara. Official support not only gave financial encouragement but also implied a change of attitude over such matters as the participation of Muslim women in productions.

By the middle of the 20th century, theatrical life was mostly centred on Istanbul and Ankara, although theatres and companies continued in the small towns too. A growing number of original plays, some of which were influenced by American literature, have been written and produced; the standard has been higher than it was before World War I, when Turkish poetry and fiction were rather more impressive than the drama. Subjects, too, have been more diverse since that time. To topics such as the position of women, marriage and divorce, and the character of Islamic institutions—all popular under the Ottomans—have been added the Greco-Turkish wars, education, village conditions, secularization, class struggle, and psychological problems. The Dormen Theatre was founded in Istanbul in 1955 by Haldun Dormen; in the 1971 World Theatre season in London the company performed A Tale of Istanbul, a comedy that included elements of folklore, a puppet show, singing, and a belly dance. The Dormen Theatre also produced modern Western plays.

Iran

In Iran the birth of the modern theatre dates from the second half of the 19th century. Adaptations and translations from European plays appeared in Persian, often with the location and names suited to Iran. Molière again was a favourite and western European influence considerable, though Russian literature also left its mark.

Playwrights began to write original plays almost at once; one of the earliest playwrights was an Azerbaijani, named Akhundof, living in the Caucasus. He wrote seven comedies ridiculing Persian and Caucasian Muslim society; all were translated into Persian and printed in 1874. Other plays likewise showed pronounced yearnings for social reform presented in a satirical style; some of those were published in a magazine called Tyatr (“Theatre”), which first appeared in 1908. Another type was the patriotic play, extolling Iran’s history.

Some pre-World War I pieces were designed for reading rather than production. They were performed usually in schools, but there were hardly any professional actors, and the stage and props were very simple. After World War I, suitable halls were built in Tehrān and other cities, but the iron hand of Reza Shah (1925–41) curtailed development through continuous censorship and surveillance. After 1942 many new companies were formed, and there was speedy development, with growing interest in social and political subjects, though competition from foreign films was considerable. The revolutionary Islamic regime established in 1979 severely curtailed theatrical activity.