Reclaiming Grief: When Iranians Turn Sorrow and Rage into Dance

Mahtab Mahboub​

On the fortieth day after the burial of protesters killed by Iranian security forces on the nights of January 8 and 9, 2026, cemeteries across Iran filled with movement instead of silence. In many cases, families had only received the bodies weeks later, prevented by security forces from burying their loved ones as they wished. When the chehelom ceremonies finally began on February 17, 2026 (28 Bahman 1404), mourners gathered over the graves in their hundreds, but rather than reciting Qur’anic verses or performing customary rituals, they danced, clapped, and chanted slogans.

These memorials transformed grief into a public act of defiance against state violence. Across towns and villages, mourners chanted political slogans, sang protest songs, and commemorated the dead not through quiet prayer but through rhythm and dance. The chehelom — the fortieth-day memorial deeply rooted in Iranian mourning tradition — became something else: a public assertion that the dead would not disappear into silence. 

One video received from forty-day memorials shows large crowds gathering in villages near Bushehr in southern Iran. On February 18, mourners assembled at the cemetery of Boneh-Gaz village to honor Mansoureh Heydari, a nurse, and her husband, Behrouz Mansouri, who had left two children with their families to join the protests after work. They were both shot dead  by security forces. Their memorial was accompanied by the sounds of senj and damam drums and the daf. Participants chanted, “By the blood of our comrades, we stand until the end.” A day earlier, at the nearby Tangak cemetery, justice-seeking families commemorated Zahra Fazeli, a 38-year-old, lively woman with a PhD in business who was fluent in several languages. The mourners were holding her portraits while clapping and playing music. These scenes were repeated across the country: grief amplified into collective presence. 

Iranian culture is not unfamiliar with what might be called a “dance of mourning.” Kurdish communities have long performed the Chamari in times of grief for those who died young, fighters, and others who have passed away or been killed—often in an unjust or heroic manner; Lurs dance Chobi; Arab communities perform Yazleh; Turkmen traditions incorporate music played on the dutar. Movement has historically allowed grief to become communal rather than isolating. 

These gatherings extended beyond remembrance. Political slogans were chanted, favorite songs of the deceased were replayed, and crowds marched together, insisting on the continuation of the “path, name, and memory” of those killed while declaring an absence of fear toward repression. 

Religious minorities such as Yarsan faith followers played the tanbur and performed sacred Yarsani maqams in memorial ceremonies of their Kurdish and Turkish young community members killed in the protests. In the northern city of Lahijan, hundreds gathered outside a mosque for slain protester Mani Safarpour’s 40th-day ceremony, where mourners broke with convention by performing the rarely seen “Droum” dance — a gesture traditionally reserved for celebration and combat display — signaling a desire for vengeance against those they blame for the killing. 

Images circulating online show parents dancing despite overwhelming grief, clapping to slow rhythms, sometimes collapsing from exhaustion. In other ceremonies, hundreds — occasionally thousands — stood shoulder to shoulder in collective singing. In cities such as Mamasani and Bushehr, live percussion and protest anthems transformed mourning into coordinated performance. Alongside protest music, families played the deceased's favorite songs, restoring individuality to lives reduced by official narratives to statistics or accusations. 

To understand why the fortieth day carries such power, one must look to its historical and cultural roots. In Iranian and Shi‘i tradition, the chehelom marks the conclusion of the primary mourning period. The ritual provides communal support for grieving families, helping reduce emotional pain and marking a cultural transition from intense mourning toward social and psychological recovery after forty days. However, as the sociologist Shahla Shafiq has argued, the mourning dance rituals mean “we are the continuation of what has happened. Nothing truly ends; rather, it begins again in every moment.” 

Historically, these gatherings also created socially legitimate spaces for assembly. During the 1979 Revolution, cycles of forty-day commemorations repeatedly reignited protests, turning mourning into a mechanism of political mobilization. Today’s ceremonies echo that history, though now directed against the system born from that revolution. 

In many memorials, the fortieth day became an explicit stage for political declaration. Slogans ranging from “Death to the Dictator”, “Death to Khamenei”, and “This flower, torn petal by petal, became a gift to the homeland” to chants recalling revolutionary rhetoric were heard across gatherings. Other slogans emphasized collective resistance: “For every one person killed, a thousand stand behind them.” 

These performances were not defined solely by music or dance, but by the power of collective voice — rhythmic repetition that generated emotional unity and political direction. Mourning reached its peak intensity precisely at the moment when grief transformed into shared chanting. 

Alongside these acts emerged deeply symbolic rituals linking death back to life. Families organized birthday celebrations or symbolic wedding ceremonies for young victims who never reached those milestones. White dresses, bridal veils, or groom’s suits were brought to gravesites; sweets were distributed, and cakes cut. One widely shared image showed relatives holding a symbolic wedding ceremony above the grave of Amirhossein Sheikhpour during his forty-day memorial in Layen village. 

In Iranian custom, such “weddings in heaven” honor unmarried youths whose futures were stolen. In the current context, these ceremonies carried added meaning: they exposed the ordinary lives denied by violence — marriages never held, birthdays never celebrated, futures abruptly erased. 

At its core, mourning dance represents a shift in how grief is embodied. When speech is restricted and protest criminalized, the body becomes the last language available. Movement speaks where words cannot. Each step challenges fear; each rhythm asserts presence. Dancing bodies become living archives, carrying memory through motion and making forgetting impossible. 

In a society where public joy has long been restricted and celebration policed, dancing and music have become political. During the Women, Life, Freedom protests, executed protester Majidreza Rahnavard had asked people not to cry at his grave or perform traditional mourning rituals, but instead to celebrate and play joyful music. Many chehelom ceremonies ever since have increasingly become an affirmation of life rather than an expression of silence and submission. The regime has rendered ordinary life increasingly impossible — whether through mass violence or through conditions that deny dignity and freedom. Against this reality, dancing over graves becomes an affirmation of life itself. 

The mourners do not dance because grief has ended. They dance because grief cannot remain contained. In cemeteries across Iran, sorrow moves, sings, and refuses to be erased.

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