Staging Resistance: The Girl of Enghelab Street and the Theatricality of Public Space in Iran: An Experiential Study on EcoPoetry and VocalAesthesis in Natural Environments

Abstract

On 27 December 2017, during mass demonstrations against Iran’s economic crisis, a video of a young woman standing silently on a utility box while waving a white headscarf on a stick captured widespread attention. Among the crowd of chanting protesters and passersby on Tehran’s Enghelab (Revolution) Street, her motionless figure and unspoken resistance ignited national and international discourse. Over time, she became known as the "Girl of Enghelab Street," and her act came to symbolise a turning point in Iran’s women’s movement and broader anti-government resistance.

This seemingly simple gesture was politically and performatively complicated. Its significance lies not only in the visual power of the act but also in how it changed the spatial, social, and symbolic dynamics of Iranian public life. Through this act, the protester transformed a corner of Tehran into a theatrical space of resistance by using the very medium that the state wanted to regulate: her body. This article analyses the gesture through the lens of spatial politics, spectatorship, theatricality, and feminist/queer theory, highlighting its legacy from 2017 to the Women, Life, Freedom movement of 2022.