What is Persian Dance?
The Persian Classical Dance is a fluid yet rhythmic dance form, which emphasizes the use of hands and wrists. The movement and positioning of the body reflect the rich and refined aesthetics of Persian culture. The shape of the hands, movement of the wrists, rhythmic foot patterns, isolation and coordination of arms and legs, are all integrated to capture the Persian aesthetics in the body line.
Where does the dance come from?
The Oriental Dances includes a whole lot of different dance styles. The dances differs from one country to another, but there are also different folkloric dances in different parts of one country. Today it's hard to knowing exactly how the dances originally was performed. Many has agreed that during the history of time, dance has been a way of connecting the spiritual world with the life of earth before the entry of the religions.
The Persian Classical Dance has its origin in Fars, in Iran but has, just as many other dance forms, had an influence and been influenced by other dance forms, such as ballet. In the country of Iran you can find many other different folk dances such as the azeri and gilaki in the north, the baluchi in the east, the bandari in the south, as well as the younger baba karam in the cities.
What does Persian dance look like?
Here's an exempel of Persian Classical Dance, performed by Maria at 1001 Moves in Holland, June 2016.
Choreography by Helia Bandeh (IRN/NLD).