Testimonials

When Banafsheh Sayyad & ZARBANG came to Northern Virginia last May, my dance teacher Laurel Victoria Gray told me about the show and I went to see it. Here is a brief, informal review I wrote then and just found it again... Banafsheh Sayyad is a real Sufi priestess from Iran. She is bringing to life the actual presence and power of ancient priestesses through her incredible spiritually overwhelming dance. I just came from a performance by her, and all I could say was "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!!!" She and the percussionists created a space that took herself and the audience into intense ecstasy. She whirled with abandon in a freeform dance in which she really let herself go and used the mystical power of rhythm and dance to charge the space with unbelievable, unimaginable ecstatic trance.

I can't find the words to describe it, except to say you know those times when you suddenly realize that what you've gotten yourself into is extremely more intense than you could have anticipated? She took us there tonight. The sacred dance she has recreated and mastered caused that almost unbearable ecstasy to rise up within me and burst forth into another world. The only times I have felt this way before was on powerful psychedelics. Now I know the experience can be created purely through rhythm and dance, and the power of wild women.

As I saw Banafsheh dancing, I understood she is beyond being an "artist." She is truly a priestess, and her dance removed historical time altogether, the thousands of years in which the patriarchy tried to stamp out women's sacred dance, women's role as powerful priestesses of the numinous. All that was banished as she reconnected us with the power of the ancient priestesses and made it live again. It's coming back! It felt somehow out of place to applaud afterward, as though it were just another artistic performance. It wasn't. It was ageless, pure spiritual trance. It was real, immediate, mind blowing.

John Monastra

What was new and very unexpected at least for myself, was your dance. Really it is out of this world, and no word or compliment can describe it. I love music and dancing and in my previous life, I was also fascinated by Sufism. I’ve taken some Yoga and Martial Arts before. I always thought, Sufism is great in spirituality, it’s a great food for mind and soul, but unfortunately opposite of the Hindu or far east philosophy which address the soul, mind as well as body, Sufism, never get to the physical part, like Yoga and Martial Art. Do you know what I mean? But I guess, I found the missing link! Your dance, which I saw last night, is very representative of what one can call Sufi dance or “Raghs-e Sama”. When I checked out your web site, I realized I was not very off! Keep up the excellent work. I hope to see your performance again!

Abbas

You are the ultimate artist, the one who says yes to creating your own way and sees too the value of establishing true technique to support that way.. i have admired you for that for years now, and am heartened to see it recognized and even put into print! I am so happy that you are creating the genre for your heritage, that you are bringing your elegance and your fierceness, your total self, your history with your father, your culture, that you are weaving the sufi, the gypsy, the healing arts and the very unique YOU into inspirational art. Again I say BRAVO DANCER!
It is a privilege to watch you dance. You are a beautiful dancer. Watching you move is to watch an ecstatic. What is so extraordinary about ‘Banafsheh Dance’? Your hands are so graceful and beautiful to watch. Your body merges with the music and with spirit and you move with a divine integrity. You are like water: flowing and strong. I cannot get the images of you turning out of my mind's eye. I want to tell you again how beautiful your dancing is. I loved your dancing. You are really extraordinary, your whole being becomes transformed into fluid strengths and poems. Congratulations on achieving such a high level of mastery.

Antonia Kabakov, legendary Flamenco dancer, choreographer & teacher

Banafsheh's dance of Oneness series is a powerful immersion into the center of our spiritual being. Through her chosen avenue within the medium of dance, she draws on her spiritual cultural forms, bringing together levels of earth and heaven within herself as a pure and fluid vehicle, expanding possibilities through Presence and embodied Awareness. From the form of her personal inheritance of Persian dance as well as other traditional dances like Flamenco, she opens inner space, becoming a Container of Love in a new and evolving expansion of boundaries and awareness, evident in her powerful movements and her soft surrendered curves.

In these days when our spiritual traditions are hitting up against globalism, everything is in question and change. Banfsheh's dance embodies this new awareness and supports its growth. Audience and students alike receive her vibrations, passing on a new torch of fire and light through resonances deeply felt on our hearts through her pure aesthetics. Her total mind-body Awareness, the opening of energy fields, is an absolute prerequisite to sustain the "turn" of the Whirling Dance, connected to particular energy fields moving in unity without ourselves when the dance becomes Worship. What she brings supports our connection the the Divine Oneness as well as our Humanity, allowing us to serve as a bridge between divine energies and the world in a most natural and beautiful way.

www.amberblue.org

Amy Barker-Wilson, visual artist, spiritual dance practioner, Semazen

I loved Banafsheh’s teaching and class so much. She embodies Sufi dance and teachings with a radiance and passion that saturated the depths of my body and heart. I would come to ANY workshop she offers. It was a rare opportunity and pleasure to be guided by such an embodied teacher. Her warmth, experience and passion are very inspiring. It was one of the most alive and vibrant workshops if not the best I’ve ever been to. She is so loving and tender – a true joy to be in her presence.

Heather

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

Banafsheh is Rumi incarnate!

Hilary

Eslaen Workshop, August 2007

Banafsheh’s workshop was amazing. She is excellent. Her knowledge, talent and leadership is magnificent. She has so much compassion for everyone and the input and insight she gave everyone is amazing. The is the best workshop I have ever taken!

Soheila

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

My experience in Banafsheh’s workshop was the opening of my body, to feel the grace in my body. I felt present and IN my body. The turning or whirling was an amazing experience – moving meditation – you become a vortex, a channel and the energy just passes through you and shines through you. I cannot say enough about the group leader – the grace – her presence is mesmerizing and contagious

Maryam

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

My experience in Banafsheh’s workshop has been truly liberating, exciting and getting me ready to move into a different level of my life. Banafsheh has an amazing serenity and beauty that emanates from her - very present with the energy of the room and every participant. Creative, fun, great variety, excellent choice of music and body awareness.

Nazila

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

The workshop was amazing! Banafsheh is a master teacher of movement meditation, ritual and dance. I am so grateful to have had her workshop as the center of my experience at Esalen

Blythe

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

I felt very joyous and delighted to be privileged to partake in Banafsheh’s workshop. We need more happy moving classes here. Please welcome her again

Marsha

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

Banafsheh is great. Her workshop was very rejuvenating, alive and fulfilling, wonderful, fun and special.

David

Esalen Workshop, August 2007

I very much enjoyed the class yesterday. “I was inspired by your integration of Sufi and Eastern philosophy, especially the idea of walking joyfully with present-moment awareness, and the ideas of being fully ourselves and allowing our souls to expand. All ideas that I have been more in touch with recently, so it's been a nice convergence. And your precise and passionate teaching made it rather easy to understand the movements. In short, I loved it!

Farshid

San Diego 8-Week Classes, May 2008

Thank you so much for an exquisitely beautiful, powerful and profound dancing experience this past weekend. It was such an honour, a privilege and a delight to be with and to dance with you. Your gentle, clear encouragement, your fluid, responsive teaching style and the sheer presence of your inspiring essence are peacefully intoxicating. My life and my body.mind.spirit have been indelibly altered and I will continue to cherish the feelings and movements we generated, individually and as a group! Thank you so much for your grace, your generosity and your deep loving kindness. The wisdom and beauty of your dance and your teaching are still “turning” within me! What gifts you have given us.

Deborah

There are many things shifting and opening in me, which I do not understand but do welcome - moving to the edges of invisibility and stillness. I am so grateful to you for the gracious space you create for making possible the most profound level of transformation possible - that which moves through our bodies.

Tannis

I wanted to tell you how much I loved watching your work, it is truly breathtaking.

Gelareh

You were flowing like a beautiful river of light.

Amel Tafsout

Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you very much for the wonderful experience I gained during your dance workshop in Madrid. It was both interesting and inspiring watching and learning from you. What has been even more exciting is that as soon as I arrived in the UK an opportunity arose where I have been able to take the techniques you gave us and use them as tools to create a small solo dance routine.

Mona

I would like to thank you for your beautiful mystical Persian dance which flew us to the mystical realm of Rumi so we would feel the impossible with all of our being

Majid

Dear Banafsheh, this is my second time that I am seeing your performance. It was magnificent. Your performance, while so feminist, is artistic and beautiful. I have no words to explain how much I enjoyed it. When you were dancing with that beautiful red dress, I could not help but to shed tears. I am proud of you. It was so moving to see you dance with your father. It was meaningful. Thank You.

Victoria

Your program was the best concert I have ever seen!

Simin

I just got home from seeing your performance and just couldn't wait to congratulate you on such a great performance and a great program. I am, as every other person having seen your program, so proud to have been in the audience and I am especially proud to know you.

Fereshteh Fatemi

I loved your show at the Huntington Beach Theater!!!
You and the girls were simply terrific!!!!!!!

Elaine Ownby

Your style of your dance is unique and so rare.

Mohammad Hassan Bakhti

Thank you so much for your beautiful performance in Salt Lake City. I was once again inspired by your moving dance. We are grateful to you for presenting such uplifting, tasteful dance in a world where many performers offer only temporal or pseudo sensual dance in the name of ‘Middle Eastern tradition’.

Kathryn St. John

Maybe the strongest sensation I had from your workshop, apart from others, was when we did body-waves going back, feeling the "great ball behind" and you suggested to imagine "the invisible" supporting our back...then I got it. I saw the door. I really could dance with my deceased, I used their force to move. I believed on my ancestors. I was feeling my roots. (Fifteen days before the workshop, I lost my related cousin on a car crash and he was also dancing with life through the waves from my physical body. Not a special sensation, just love.)

...Very precise work Banafsheh, Bravo. You induce people to be just connectors, cleaning themselves through the dance. Allowing to feel what's really happening out of their skin. And also inside. What I love the most is that you have chosen the very best things you have learned from every discipline to act as a powerful cocktail for a human being.

Natalia

I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to your serenity/power in dance and movement the next time you are in Vancouver. I am sure that I continue to speak for others in saying that we have been deeply affected and had our spiritual practices enriched.

Karin