IRAN's Culture news

[SHAHED]

IRAN's Culture news​

 

[SHAHED]

Georgia Pays Tribute to Persian Poet Sa’adi Shirazi

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- Iran’s cultural office in Georgia has held a ceremony to commemorate the eminent 13th-century Persian poet, Sa’adi Shirazi in the capital city of Tbilisi.
A number of Iranian officials and Persian language scholars attended the ceremony along with Georgian Persian language Professors and Iranologists of Tbilisi State University.
Iranian Ambassador to Georgia Majid Saber thanked famous Georgian orientalist and translator of Sa’adi’s Golestan, Giorgi Lobzhanidze.
A short documentary film with Georgian subtitles was also screened during the event held at the Iranian embassy in Georgia on April 21, 2012. The film introduced Sa’adi’s hometown, the Iranian cultural city of Shiraz.
Born in Shiraz in 1194 CE, Sa’adi Shirazi, is known as a Sufi master, mystic and metaphysicist in the history of Persian literature.
His proficiency in Persian literature confers on him the title ‘Master of Prose and Poetry’.
Sa'adi is best-known for his Boustan and Golestan which present a peculiar blend of human kindness and cynicism, humor, and resignation in the form of stories and personal anecdotes.
He is also remembered as a great panegyrist and lyricist, the author of a number of masterly odes portraying human experience, and particular odes collected in Ghazaliyat (Sonnets) and Qasa'id (Odes).
Sa'adi is known world-wide for one of his aphorisms, which adorns the entrance to the Hall of Nations of the United Nations building in New York.


Singers Team Up to Voice Iranians' Devotion to Persian Gulf

TEHRAN (MNA) -- Four Iranian singers plan to go on stage next week to perform joint concerts, which have been organized to show Iranians’ strong devotion the Persian Gulf.
“The Persian Gulf Concerts are the voices of Iranians telling the neighboring countries that they are aware,” one of the organizers Fariborz Safardust said in a press conference on Sunday.
Vocalists Nima Masiha, Hamid Khazaei, Mani Rahnama and Salar Aqili teamed up to perform a grand concert entitled “Persian Gulf” in Tehran’s Milad Tower on May 2 and 3.
“The concert is the voice of the Iranian nation to alert the neighboring countries that we are aware,” Safardust mentioned in a press conference at the Milad Tower on Sunday.
Composed by the Tehran Academic Orchestra, the musical pieces on the program of the concert will be performed according the principles of our national music, Safardust added.
Traditional music vocalist Salar Aqili will start the concert followed by other vocalists who will perform other pieces. The celebrated piece “O, Iran” will be performed by four vocalists, one of the Milad Tower’s officials, Hadi Biazar, mentioned at the press conference.
A total of 80 instrumentalists and a 20-member choral will accompany the vocalists during the concerts, he mentioned.
The concerts were planned in winter 2012 and the rehearsals began a month ago, Salar Aqili mentioned at the conference.
He called the concert a new experience for him saying that he is happy to do something other than “routine work”.
“Iranian people rarely listen to traditional music and I hope we can attract a large public audience with this concert,” he added.
Pop singer Nima Masiha also explained about the performance. He said that he is happy that the performances are combination of traditional and pop music.
He said that he attended the performance since he is “Iranian” and he support performances in the name of Persian Gulf.


Kuwait Gallery to Hang Paintings by Iranian Artists

TEHRAN (MNA) -- A collection of paintings created by three Iranian artists will go on display in an exhibit at the Dar Al-Fonoon Art Gallery in Kuwait.
Maryam Iranpanah, Sassan Qaredaghlu and Havar Amini will display their artwork during a showcase entitled “Collective exhibition of Iranian Contemporary Art” which will run from April 25 to May 10
The artist, Iranpanah’s work was described by Professor of Art History at California State University Abbas Daneshvari as representative of “humanized perspective wherein memory persists across cultural zones, even when and where it has no relevance”.
The gallery was established in 1994. It aims to introduce painting, sculpture, handicrafts and other kind of arts through several exhibitions in Kuwait.


Iran’s ‘Here without Me’ Warmly Received in Tiburon Intl. Filmfest

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- Iranian filmmaker Bahram Tavakkoli’s Here without Me has gained international acclaim at the 2012 Tiburon International Film Festival (TIFF).
Tavakkoli’s latest production was warmly received at the American festival where it participated as Iran’s only representative.
A contemporary Iranian adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie, Here without Me recounts the story of a single mother working hard to find a match for her shy and lame-legged daughter, while her son dreams mostly of cinema and running away from family obligations.
Distributed by Iran’s Visual Media Institute, the movie has been screened at several international festivals such as Montreal's World Film Festival in Canada, Hamburg International Film Festival in Germany and Pune International Film Festival in India.
Tavakkoli's production was also screened at the 2012 edition of Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) recently held in March.
The film's lead actress Fatemeh Motamed-Aria won the Best Actress Prize of the 2011 World Film Festival in Montreal.
The annual Tiburon International Film Festival seeks to provide a greater understanding of the world and its many cultures through the artistic medium of cinema, and through the top quality films from around the world.
The 11th edition of the festival kicked off on April 19 and will run until April 27, in Tiburon, California.


'Ice Cream Headaches' Might Offer Clues to Migraines

WASHINGTON (HealthDay News) -- That "brain freeze" headache you experience when eating ice cream or other cold foods may be caused by a sudden change in brain blood flow, researchers report.
What's more, the new research might point to targets to treat other, more troubling forms of headache such as migraine, the U.S. team said.
In the study, the scientists monitored brain blood flow in 13 healthy adults as they sipped ice water through a straw pressed against the upper palate so as to trigger "brain freeze."
The results suggest that these transient headaches are triggered by a sudden increase in blood flow in the brain's anterior cerebral artery. Brain freeze disappears again when this artery constricts, the study found.
The findings, to be presented Sunday at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco, may help lead to new treatments for other types of headaches, the researchers said. Experimental Biology brings together researchers from six scientific societies.
The rapid dilation and then quick constriction of the anterior cerebral artery may be a type of self-defense for the brain, explained study leader Jorge Serrador of Harvard Medical School and the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center of the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System.
"The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time. It's fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation [expansion of blood vessels] might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm," Serrador noted in an American Physiological Society news release.
He explained that the skull is a closed structure and the sudden rush of blood could therefore boost pressure and cause pain. The subsequent constriction of the artery may also be a way to reduce pressure in the brain before it reaches dangerous levels.
Brain blood flow changes similar to those seen in brain freeze could be associated with migraines and other types of headaches, Serrador said. If further research confirms that this is the case, then finding ways to control brain blood flow could offer new treatments for headaches, he said.


Skimmed Dairy Products Reduce Stroke Risk

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- Swedish researchers say people who consume plenty of low-fat dairy products every day are at a lower risk of developing a stroke.
Susanna C. Larsson and colleagues of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden say the highest consumers of low-fat dairy who on average took four servings a day, along with more than five full-fat portions were 12 percent less likely to have a stroke.
According to the report published in the journal Stroke, the study followed 74,961 healthy adults and found that full-fat milk, cream, and cheese didn't show any positive or negative effects on the risk of stroke.
“From a public health perspective, if people consume more low-fat dairy foods rather than high-fat dairy foods, they will benefit from a reduced risk of stroke and other positive health outcomes,” said Dr. Larsson.
The report highlighted that the study just managed to show an association and not a cause and effect relation between consuming skimmed dairy products and stroke risk.
The minerals and nutrients such as calcium, potassium, magnesium and vitamin D found in dairy products lower the stroke risk, the study suggests.
In addition, “low-fat dairy foods but not high-fat dairy foods has been shown to reduce blood pressure, and high blood pressure is a strong risk factor for stroke,” Dr. Larsson noted.