Come Home To The Body Through Sacred Movement with Banafsheh Sayyad -An inspiring talk and guided workshop with Banafsheh Sayyad
Come Home to the Body Through Sacred Movement
An immersive talk and guided workshop with Banafsheh Sayyad
Cross Cultural Expressions, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, presents the fifth session of a six-part Wellness Circle series for the Iranian community.
This event is free with RSVP required at connectwithcce@gmail.com.
Join us for an unforgettable evening of presence, movement, and a return to self through sacred movement with internationally renowned spiritual embodiment teacher, choreographer, author, and sacred dancer Banafsheh Sayyad..
Through an inspiring talk inspired by her book Dance of Oneness and guided movement practice, you will be gently invited to soften, release, and reconnect with your body as the sacred vessel through which you experience all of life. This is a space to restore balance, quiet the mind, open the heart, and awaken clarity, courage, and presence.
No dance experience is needed—only a willingness to show up as you are.
Let this be your invitation to slow down, come back to yourself, and experience the healing power of movement and community.
This event will be held in English and Farsi. All are welcome.
Location: Reed Park Auditorium 1133 7th St. Santa Monica, CA 90403
Banafsheh Sayyad is an internationally known spiritual teacher, author, sacred dancer, and embodiment guide whose work bridges sacred dance as a spiritual practice, Divine Feminine wisdom, and healing. Born in Iran into a lineage of pioneering artists, Banafsheh has dedicated her life to helping others awaken embodied awareness and love through the body—and to live life as a dance.
Trained at UCLA (MFA in Dance & Choreography) and possessing an MA in Chinese Medicine, Banafsheh’s modality, Dance of Oneness, is a Divine Feminine lineage that weaves together Persian dance, Sufi whirling, mystical poetry, Taoist philosophy and chakra-based healing in a profoundly accessible teaching style.
Her performances and teachings have been described as transformative—inviting audiences into the body as prayer, presence, and liberation.
Her dance company, NAMAH, and her internationally presented works have been featured across North America, Europe, and Australia.
As the Los Angeles Times writes:
“A trailblazing pioneer… sensuous and audacious… a mesmerizing foray into the body as trance mechanism.”
And:
“A font of exquisite perpetual motion… a master of Persian, Flamenco and Tai Chi movement.”
Member
Banafsheh - Dance of OnenessEvent MemberIranian-born master dance artist and transformational teacher, Banafsheh communicates the universal message of Sufi mysticism and Divine Feminine wisdom in a passionate yet serenely meditative way. Her dance is an interplay between trance and directed movement, precise yet abandoned and unrestrained. Her explosive yet fluid movement is sensual and ritualistic, uniting the feminine and masculine energies, body and soul, light and dark in a marriage of opposites. She invokes the ancient roots of dance as devotion, prayer and adoration while blazing an original trail in contemporary dance with her masterly fusion of high level dance technique and spirituality.
Her mesmerizing offering of the timeless Divine Feminine inside a contemporary gypsy dervish beckons all to engage, serve, exalt and honor our sexuality as sacred. She is one of the few bearers of authentic Persian dance in the world, an innovator of Sufi dance previously only performed by men and a pioneer in contemporary Persian dance, all of which characterize the form she has created called Dance of Oneness® geared towards empowering women and men through sacred embodiment.
Internationally known for her innovative movement vocabulary and high artistic and educational standards, she draws from her extensive background in Sufism, Persian dance and ritual, Tai Chi and flamenco to present a new form, rooted in tradition yet universal.
Banafsheh’s movement is comprised in part by the Persian alphabet translated into gestures and movement, which when put together dances out words and poetic stanzas, mostly taken from the works of the great mystic poet, Rumi, whom she has studied extensively, resonating with his fierce yet gentle essence that beckons each and everyone to break through conformity and limitation to find their individual glory.
Banafsheh comes from a long lineage of pioneering performing artists. Her father, the legendary Iranian filmmaker, theater director and actor, Parviz Sayyad, hailed as the Charlie Chaplin of Iran, is the most famous Iranian of his time. Banafsheh is a recipient of the prestigious James Irvine Foundation grant in Dance. She holds an MFA in Dance from UCLA where she taught Persian dance. She has studied with some of the great masters in dance and choreography including Antonia Rojos, Victoria Marks, David Rousseve and Donna Uchizono. Also an acupuncturist, she draws from the Taoist view of the internal functioning of the body to uncover the healing, rejuvenating aspects of movement. Banafsheh’s solo and ensemble work with her dance company, NAMAH has been presented extensively in festivals and by dance presenters in North America, Europe and Australia where she has gained tremendous audience and critical acclaim. She recently performed at the closing night of the Festival of Sacred Arts in Madrid at Teatros del Canal. Her 2011 dance film In the Fire of Grace with author and scholar, Andrew Harvey traces Rumi’s journey of the Soul in dance.
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