Biography of Rana Gorgani

Born in Germany, Rana Gorgani spent her teenage years in France where she quickly joined various theater groups. At the age of 14, she travelled for the first time to Iran, her parents’ country of origin, and discovered the mystical Sufi world thanks to the Daf (a drum accompanying ritual chants), as well as Sufi dance. Essentially practiced by men, the whirling dervishes, this one is characterized by a continuous rotary movement involving the body in a modified state of consciousness. It is a revelation for her. A return to the roots. While continuing to travel to Iran, where her thirst for spirituality led her to join Sufi brotherhoods, she continued her French schooling. After graduating with a literary baccalaureate, she was accepted at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Paris, where she trained in acting and directing. She understands from this time the capital role played by the costumes in a show.

After only one year of conservatory, he was offered to teach people with disabilities, but also teenagers. A founding experience of transmission, which will serve her when she will have to make known the Sufi dance, almost unknown at the beginning in the West. From her years of theater, Rana Gorgani will keep in her way of dancing the quest for truth. And the taste for refined gestures. At the age of 21, she participated in the show of an Iranian director in which she danced fleetingly. The audience seems to only remember this moment. That’s when Rana Gorgani realized that with this art she could touch people’s hearts. She left everything behind to move to Iran and was taught by a Sufi master in order to deepen her knowledge of Samâ (“spiritual listening”) dance, another name for Sufi dance.

When she founded the association L’Œil persan in 2009, she was already giving lectures on Persian culture and was beginning to become one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject.

In 2016, she earned a master’s degree in dance anthropology and ethnomusicology. For her memoir, she lived in the desert with nomadic dervishes from Iran. Awakened to the power of the immaterial, she becomes aware of the beauty of a sunset or the value of water. Back in France, she wishes to fully dedicate her life and her art to Sufi dance. And does not want to interpret other Persian dances where, according to her, the dancer is in representation. She wants to “be” rather than “appear”.

Rana Gorgani: Sufi Dancer and Creator of Unique Performances

Rana Gorgani not only dances, but also creates the costumes and choreography for unique works that play with the boundaries between genres.

In 2017, she opened her trance art by working with contemporary dance and circus companies.

She will dance to electronic music, classical music, jazz, etc.

It is at this period that she no longer goes on stage with a veil, as it is done in Iran to break with the folkloric side.

Strong of keeping her artistic freedom, she refuses to become a Sufi master and leaves the brotherhoods.

In 2018, she collaborated with the Haïdouti Orkestar, a Turkish orchestra of Balkan music, and danced at the Opéra Garnier for Longchamp’s seventieth anniversary.

The whirling dervish travels a lot to spread the Samâ dance. She remains one of the few Sufi artists to perform in public and regularly organizes performances and participates in many festivals. Far from dogmas and always in this will of opening, she tries in her teaching to put the light on the philosophical aspect of Sufism in order to be able to touch the greatest number. To transmit this practice, which she defines as the expression of the joy of being in movement on Earth, she uses a rigorous initiatory dance technique inspired by the rituals of the Sufi brotherhoods and mixes poetry and song with dance. In her workshops or retreats, she invites to an inner journey…

Biography of Rana Gorgani

Rana Gorgani: Sufi Dancer and Creator of Unique Performances

École Internationale de Danse Soufie méthode Rana Gorgani

Date limite d'inscription le 06 juin 2024.