STAGING BELONGING: PERFORMANCE, MIGRATION, AND THE MIDDLE EASTERN DIASPORA IN THE UNITED STATES Mohamadreza Babaee Tamirdash A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2020 Committee: Angela K. Ahlgren, Advisor Kei Nomaguchi Graduate Faculty Representative Jonathan Chambers Lesa Lockford © 2020 Mohamadreza Babaee Tamirdash All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Angela K. Ahlgren, Advisor What does it mean to be a Middle Eastern immigrant in the Islamophobic and anti- immigrant context of the early twenty-first century US? How can performance help to construct and make sense of Middle Eastern immigrant identities and their belonging to US society? In “Staging Belonging: Performance, Migration, and the Middle Eastern Diaspora in the United States,” I take on these questions to interrogate facets of “belonging” for Middle Eastern immigrants in a post-9/11 US. I use ethnographic, archival, and performance analysis research methods to examine a range of performances, from the explicitly theatrical to the everyday, to argue that Middle Eastern immigrants use performance tools in aesthetic and quotidian settings to challenge xenophobic and Orientalist meanings of the Middle East while constructing nuanced understandings of Middle Eastern identity in US diaspora. In my attempt to learn about the diasporic formations of Middle Eastern identity through performance, I pay attention to a variety of performance types. In the first chapter, I engage with cultural citizenship theory to study the performance practices of Middle Eastern American theatre companies in producing civic participation opportunities for their target audiences. I focus on the notion of “home” in the second chapter to examine the complicated relationship of Middle Eastern immigrants with their host countries in Saba Zavarei’s travel performance Looking for Tehran (2013) and Mohamad Hafez and Ahmed Badr’s installation Unpacked: Refugee Baggage (2017). In the last chapter, I examine how post-9/11 US surveillance strategies shape Middle Eastern identity in everyday performances of border crossing at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, Vermont. I conclude by offering a brief analysis of Wafaa Bilal’s iv Domestic Tension (2007) to explore how the digitization of the War on Terror leads to more violence against Middle Eastern bodies. In a time when immigrants from the Middle East encounter xenophobic policies and hostile attitudes in the US, demystifying Middle Eastern immigrant identities and highlighting their contributions to society are crucial to creating a society based in equality. This study contributes new perspectives to theatre and performance scholarship that seeks to trouble the xenophobic views of many Americans toward immigrants and the ways they do and do not belong to US society. v To the loving memory of Ziba Fatemi, my maman bozorg, who taught me to laugh. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not come to a conclusion without the uncompromising help of my teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my committee. Thank you to Dr. Angela Ahlgren, whose teaching first inspired me to study a topic so invested in marginalized communities. Moreover, without Dr. Ahlgren’s continuous support and mentorship over the years, completing this project would not be possible. Thank you to Dr. Jonathan Chambers, who has always guided me with nuanced insights and productive suggestions. Thanks also to Dr. Lesa Lockford for helping me with passionate thoughts about the initial design for this project as well as offering me various ideas for making this research stronger. Last but not least, thank you to Dr. Kei Nomaguchi for being an invaluable member of the committee and providing me with constructive feedback. While conducting my research, I came across many people who showed essential support for my project. I need to first thank Golden Thread Productions’ Torange Yeghiazarian, Silk Road Rising’s Jamil Khoury, and Mohamad Hafez for their generosity and compassionate dialogue. Thank you also to Saba Zavarei for indulging me in a thorough conversation despite feeling under the weather. I am also grateful for the hospitality of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House staff in Derby Line, Vermont. Furthermore, a special thanks to Lynn Rublee for hosting me in her beautiful house and providing me with an oral history of the US-Canada border in Newport. I would also like to thank many scholars who shared their insights about my project during different scholarly gatherings. Particularly, thank you to Dr. Sean Metzger and Dr. Kimberly Welch for allowing me to be a part of their “Transient Performance” focus group in the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). Similarly, thank vii you to Dr. Susan Bennett and Dr. Kristin Hunt for inviting me to participate in the “Moving San Diego” working group during the 2018 ASTR Forum. Additionally, I am grateful for the important feedback that my current and former colleagues at Bowling Green State University shared with me at different points. Thank you, Dr. Dennis Sloan, Dr. Rebecca Hammonds, Rebekah Norviel, and Tessa Vaschel. Thank you also to my dear friend, Nazli Akhtari, for suggesting many performance artists and pieces, including some discussed in the following chapters. I would also like to thank Dr. Quincy Thomas for reminding me that the success of one person of color is a success for all people of color. While I am surrounded by numerous teachers, colleagues, and friends who never hesitated to intellectually support this dissertation, I reserve a special thank you for my large family and their faith in my academic endeavors. My parents, Sharifeh Pishkar and Nowruz Babaee, are vital reasons behind any success I achieve at all points of life. Thank you, maman and baba, for teaching me that the only unconditional love is the love of family. Thank you to my sisters, Shohreh and Zohreh, for taking care of me as if I were still their ten-year-old brother. Thanks to my brothers, Reza and Hamidreza, for forming the only fraternity I ever needed in my life. Thank you also to my dear brothers-in-law, Amin and Tirdad, for making our family bigger and better. Lastly, thank you to my nephew, Arvin, and niece, Sarvin, for bringing a smile to even my grumpiest of faces. Finally, thank you to Dr. Maryam Hosseini, for keeping me human. Loving you is the most rewarding and humbling act in my everyday life. Your love is the guiding light in my darkest days and the only reason I need to believe that life is beautiful. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 Performance, Migration, and the Middle East ........................................................... 5 Middle Eastern Diaspora: History and Definition ..................................................... 14 Performance, Belonging, and Belongings ................................................................. 21 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 27 Chapter Breakdown ................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER ONE: THE PROFANE PROBLEM: CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP AND MIDDLE EASTERN AMERICAN THEATRE ARTISTS BILL OF RIGHTS ................... 37 Cultural Citizenship and Middle Eastern American Theatre Companies .................. 40 The Profane Problem ................................................................................................. 53 Middle Eastern American Theatre Artists Bill of Rights ........................................... 71 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 79 CHAPTER TWO: IN SEARCH OF HOME: BORDER CHOREOGRAPHY AND MIDDLE EASTERN IMMIGRANT IDENTITY ................................................................. 82 Looking for Tehran: Gender Mobility and Choreography of Borders ....................... 87 Government of Prudence and Hope ............................................................... 88 Iranian Femininity, or How to Destroy Borders ............................................ 93 Performing (In)visible Bodies in Unpacked: Refugee Baggage ................................ 108 The Suitcase as a Scriptive Thing .................................................................. 112 Invisible Bodies and Cultural Practices ......................................................... 115 Imagined Homes ............................................................................................ 122 ix Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 132 CHAPTER THREE: SECURING IRANIAN IDENTITY: PERFORMANCE, MUSLIM BAN, AND COVERT BORDER CROSSING ..................................................................... 134 How I Became Iranian after 9/11 ............................................................................... 139 Muslim Ban and Muslim Ghosts ............................................................................... 147 Walking on the Borderline ......................................................................................... 154 Conclusion ................................................................................................................