Testimonials

A timeless retirement
A daydream
A sublime discovery
A lively collective
A swirling dynamic
An unsuspected wealth of varied and enjoyable activities
Thank you Rana for this full of emotions

Imagine a tree in bloom! This cherry tree in full bloom is Rana’s teaching.
We sit in a circle under the branches, it snows petals. Is it possible to assimilate all this data? No matter! We keep these petals and everyone carries their share of knowledge. And in the Circle of the Circle, we shape a sky of flowers.
Thank you thank you thank you……

A few days passed.
My bag well filled, I continue the way. The experience continues; All facets of the precious continue to shine.
Here in Marseille,
A nice Moroccan trader adding saffron to a green tea…
And the rose petals…, the beauty and depth of Zakaria Yousefi’s music,
Some texts too,
A host of strong and new inspirations arise;
in my material life and in the practice and teaching that are my Life.
The sea here is not the ocean, but it is there, calling, calling, again and again. Good looking.
Today I saw a Canadair training. It releases all its load of water into the sea. It’s like a lightning sparkle. The sea spits out all the drops in a powerful breath that would come out of the depths.
Poetry and the force of the sacred are invited, a thread is woven.

My hands seek contact with the Daf like lovers who timidly dream of the next meeting.
They also dance as they know how to do, carried by the CHI, like antennas,
They feel (and/or seek) something new.
My legs, unaccustomed to hugging each other, experience this new intimacy,
Food for anchoring, verticality, for belly sun (Hara, Tan Tien, …), .

Eternally in love.

In Rana,
Thank you for the generosity,
Thanks for the risk,
Thanks for the quality in the transmission,
Thanks for the depth,
Thank you for Grace.

Thank you for this wonderful new world that you let me enter with intelligence and emotion.

OPEN YOUR ARMS TO THE UNKNOWN, TAKE THE PLUNGE WITH RANA GORGANI AND DISCOVER THE TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCE.
ENTER THE DANCE OF WHIRLING DERVISHES AND ALL THAT ACCOMPANIES SAMA.
LEARNING DAF WITH POWERFUL SOUNDS, SACRED AND CATCHY SONGS, RITUALS WITH SYMBOLS.
JOIN THE CIRCLE AND BECOME VIBRATIONAL WAVES WITH ELEGANT, GRACEFUL AND CHISELED UNDULATING POSTURES, FOR A FEW MOMENTS, A FEW MINUTES OR FOR LIFE.
LET YOURSELF BE CARRIED AWAY BY THE BREATH OF THE WHIRLWIND OR MERGE BODY, MIND, VOICE AND DIVINE AURA.
AS LONG AS IT LEADS YOU INTO A SUDDEN PASSION OR THE TURNING POINT OF YOUR LIFE, THERE IS ONLY ONE STEP… OF SUFI DANCE.
I WAS CONQUERED.

More presence in the so-called “banal” of everyday life is among the most remarkable and least predictable effects of this teaching and practice. What would be “the” spiritual? How does Rana manage to constantly adjust to each and every one according to her own artistic creativity, according to her temperament, according to her own mastery of listening, gestures and speaking? How could this so-called “ancestral” current – among others – become a sumptuous resource to better meet individually and collectively the challenges of this tumultuous 21st century?
To discover / re-discover by oneself in the intimate and subtle of the meetings proposed by Rana.

Sucked into the door of Sama,
I saw men and women
enter their shadow;
metamorphosed,
in musical notes.

Black, spread your wings and become crooked,
on the partition of the world,
To your brothers and sisters, hang on.
Forms the circle.
Double the rhythms.

Listen
the flow,
Slows down
Listen
silence.
Dance.

Rana Gorgani made me want to practice Sufi dance.
Before knowing her through the Sufi parties she organizes in Paris, I was interested from afar in this practice.
I have now been following Rana’s teaching for a few years and I am still in awe of her generosity and creativity.
Each seminar, each workshop is unique.
Its rigorous transmission and the discipline it imposes teaches us to be true. And this is a privilege.

These workshops and seminars now punctuate my life. It’s continuous learning. I learn to surpass myself, to become aware of the group, the energies that surround me, to become aware of my body, my mind, my limits too.
During these moments, I feel grounded, often liberated.

Beyond meditation and learning dance, Rana’s teaching is a path.

I appreciate this communion also with the other dancers, without words, without looks, this sharing and this closeness.

Thank you so much Rana for this passion!

It’s been almost 3 years since I discovered the practice of Sufi dance thanks to Rana’s teaching.Each season has its seminar and by juggling between my family life and my professional life, I manage to free myself to leave the hustle and bustle or chaos of everyday life to win this “bubble” rejuvenating for a few days.
Obviously, by evoking the Sufi dance, we visualize the large spinning skirts almost hypnotizing, the beauty of the movement, the physical “performance” that surprises … But, it’s much more than that.
The Sufi dance, I could describe it to you as a beautiful experience of the Circle and the Point:the Point can exist without the Circle.The Circle,him,cannot be conceived without the existence of its Center,the Point.The Man who wants to return to his Center,to his Origin,must fill this distance that separates him from this Point, by undertaking a spiritual journey. This is precisely what Sufi dance and its circular movement allow: a journey from human Exteriority to its Interiority.
Adopting this swirling movement so natural for children expressing their Joy, this divine flow that animates the entire Universe, helps in the quest for this Center.Some will call it Source of Life, others the Divine… Words don’t really matter. It is simply a universal experience, that of Love.
Like the clay that takes shape on the potter’s wheel, the Sufi dance polishes the heart, rids it of its slag and that far from any dogma. And I am very grateful to Rana for her high-quality teaching. Rigor is at the rendezvous. Precision, depth and passion in transmission as well. Strong but fair words during classes, a touch of typical Persian malice, a glass of water for the one who has been experienced by vertigo, a hug at the end of Samã (name of the Sufi dance)… Rana is a demanding, authentic and human teacher.
Sufi dance gives me this necessary anchorage so as not to disperse myself in the regrets / remorse of the past or in the sometimes anxiety-provoking projections of the future. This practice is perfectly in line with an awareness of the Present Moment.This dance also gives me, and above all, the opportunity to dive “body and soul”. The body in the swirling dynamics of movement… consciousness, motionless in the eye of the storm, in the absolute and powerful calm of Love.
Tender anecdote: to see me dancing, my 3 young children started to turn. One day soon, Rana may have them as students!

Bahareh

“I left the seminary with a heart filled with love and great strength. Sufi dance makes us live emotions that transport us, make us grow and that we all share together: we laugh, we shout, we cry … These few days spent with Rana and the other participants taught me to surpass myself, to anchor myself to better let go. By rotating one becomes the infinitely large, the planets that revolve around the sun, and the infinitely small, the electron that revolves around the nucleus of the atom. This is the essence of life. Thank you to Rana for accompanying us, giving time to everyone and taking into consideration our differences, teaching us new things. Thank you to the musicians who transport us to the light. Thank you for the divine cuisine. Thanks to the photographer for immortalizing these moments. Thank you to all the other participants for their authenticity and beauty. Thank you.”

It is said that Rumi told this story:
“A chickpea tries to jump out of the pot where it is boiling, and protests: Why are you doing this to me?
The cook brings it back with a ladle in the boiling water.
-Don’t try to escape. Do you think I’m torturing you? I am giving you taste: once mixed with rice and spices, you will be a delicious source of vitality for a human being.”
(Excerpted from Women called to the path of Rumi. Shakina Reinhertz. HohmPress. 2001. p.200)

Learning Sama with Rana is to experience this chickpea anxious to escape suffering, seeking to jump overboard when the discomfort is too great… But the demand, the discipline offered by Rana bring us back to the pot: we will not taste the ineffable flavor of Sama without going just a little… A lot… passionately… beyond the comfort zone.

His high standards are matched only by his generosity and passion; So only watching her “work” with someone is already extraordinarily exciting. The ardor of his encouragement and his sustained presence, to make the dancer (the dancer) do a new experience gives him to taste the multiple flavors of Samâ, and we – the other dancers / her – immobile on the edge of the circle where the dancer accompanied by Rana turns, we also breathe the subtle perfume of Samâ.

With Rana’s teaching, we integrate through experience, that passion can only burn and transport us if we accept the fire of discipline. Thus, beyond a technical practice of tricks, or a so-called “Sufi” practice, we join the underground current of all traditions that can live, vibrate and sing our soul in the world. I will not speak, I will not think anything: But infinite love will rise to my soul. (Rimbaud. Sensation.)

Demand, determination and rigor, nothing is left to chance by Rana. Experimenting beyond what I thought possible, through moments of nausea, fear, fatigue, Rana does not let go. I trust, Rana respects my limits and does not put anyone in danger, she guides us where it is possible to surpass ourselves.

The hours pass, I turn, we turn without losing the north, without getting lost, on the contrary, we turn on our axis in order to reconnect, refocus. In a short time everyone evolves at their own pace. At the end of a week of training, the neophytes turn, it’s impressive.

With her broad, refined and delicate smile, she welcomes us in a magical place surrounded by nature and thinks of everything, both from the point of view of place, food, and her teaching.
We are here to work accompanied by engaging music and a professional musician.

Since the summer camp, I feel that my dance has gained power, I still have a long way to go and want to continue this learning. I needed to meet a person like Rana.
It is like a translation into gesture of emotions, thoughts or things that have inhabited me at the time or for a long time. At the same time, everything around me influences and enriches me. It is a double discovery, interior and exterior.

During the workshops, we are never placed in a situation of performance or competition. Rana invites us little by little to know ourselves more and to push our limits from what we are able to do. From time to time, it puts us in a more difficult situation for us to move forward. On the other hand, Rana speaks bluntly about the different symbols existing in Sufism, the links between this dance and poetry, the elements, the movement of the planets, colors, music etc., Chams, Rumi, the divine, without intervening on what we think about God.

From this, everyone is free to interpret and express what animates him. A bit like in music where from seven notes we compose a melody, we create a dance from seven gestures. The possibilities are endless

For this rigor in teaching.
For this power in transmission.
For all that it stirs in our heart and in our being.
For this luminous sweetness that we draw from it every time.
For these unique and precious encounters, these links woven in a subtle and intimate way.
For this egregore.
For those musicians who translate the divine into notes.
For this Love

These smiles, this Light, these caresses on the heart.
It’s all there.
Look.

I have been following Rana’s teaching for several years, not assiduously, since I sometimes have periods of interruption but I like to come back to follow her Sufi dance courses, it is like a ritual but above all a need. Why this need?
It certainly has to do with Rana’s personality. Rana’s requirement is limitless, so there is always room for improvement in their work. If we are willing to evolve in her near search, Rana will accompany us.

The richness of Rana’s teaching is due, among other things, to the fact that it never dissociates the practice of dance and the origin and meaning of the dances of Iran. She therefore leads her students to give meaning to their gestures, whether they are refined for Sufi dance or more symbolic and stylized for Persian and Afghan dances. I continue to search in dance with Rana’s work, a simplicity stripped of all artifice and I still have a long way to go…

Rana is an extraordinary teacher. To the rhythm of the daf, she transmits her knowledge of Sufi dance with tact, endurance, dynamism and creativity. Her presence and her qualities as a speaker allow us to be guided towards the inner spiritual discovery of ourselves and to sublimate it in everyday life.

When I am carried away in the tour, the thought is no longer and a new energy is anchored.

Since I encountered this intoxicating dance, my vision of the whole thing has changed. My mind is more open and a quest for truth and love naturally set in. Here, I particularly recommend stays with the company l’Oeil Persan, the trip is all the more intense.

Sufi dance opened my eyes to another way of conceiving dance. I embarked on the Sufi dance workshop in August 2015 having little experience of dance and until then. Dancing was above all, in the way I represented the act of dancing, to produce an aesthetic effect. Without realizing it, I associated dance with the realm of laymanship and appearance, and although I had heard that Sufi dance has a more spiritual aspect, I did not know concretely how to understand it. Often, we dance to make beautiful movements, and often in a setting where seduction has a role to play, such as in a ball or a nightclub.

And more specifically when it comes to professional dancers who dance for an audience during a show, I told myself that dance was above all the result of technique and rigorous work. But Sufi dance allowed me to realize that dancing could also be a language, a way to express oneself and externalize what lives in us. Work, technique and rigor are nonetheless present, but they are not enough. As I felt, they are simply at the service of dance, however what allows Sufi dance to be what it is lies rather in an attitude of listening and openness that intervenes when one enters the samâ. From the profane, one then passes to the sacred; from appearance, to interiority and feeling. So Sufi dance changed my view of dance.

But I have also noticed, when talking about the Sufi dance around me, that many people misrepresent it in my opinion. The word “trance” associated with Sufi dance, gives an image that does not correspond to what I have experienced. With this word, we imagine that Sufi dance rhymes with delirium, state of possession or search for thrills. In fact, Sufi dancing for me simply rhymes with the joy of dancing!

During the course, we learned that turning on oneself, like a spinning top, was in fact a universal movement, found in many traditions, long before Sufism made its appearance as such. It is also the movement that children spontaneously make when asked to turn, and circle dances are also very old. Perhaps this joy of dancing by turning on oneself and sometimes also in a circle is simply explained by the spontaneity of these movements? Their presence both in ancient traditions and, more disorderly, in the movements that children make, perhaps show how these gestures are inscribed in us, as they are “natural”. And it seemed to me that the spiritual aspect of Sufi dance comes precisely from this return to the spontaneity, naturalness and joy of a child who starts dancing. It is not spirituality in the sense of a hermetic esotericism, but in the sense of simplicity and joy. But this does not exclude technical work within a constant search for balance: spontaneity is not chaos and confusion, it flourishes precisely because it is based on solid foundations. Learning balance in movement therefore becomes essential to push the experience of the dance of the trick as far as possible.

To conclude this little testimony, I would say that Sufi dance has allowed me, thanks to a new language for me, to externalize a feeling that I do not always have the opportunity to put forward, while in harmony with the people and the ambient atmosphere. And if I had to define my experience of Sufi dance in a few very brief words, I would use these: listening to yourself, listening to others.

I have a burning fire in my chest after the internship.
During this cycle, I went through all possible states, from deep fear to pure will but impotence but also anger as joy: pure will when I wish the skirt to turn and it seems so heavy; deep fear when I am faced with going in one direction; anger at that skirt that still doesn’t want to turn and distracts me; the joy of no longer being, of being only Earth-Sky axis, of this freedom; Abandonment in the fall.

When I leave my path or refuse it or go too far, beyond my limits, the fire has always burned me on a physical level (falls, burnout, over-infected blisters). It makes me feel good to experience the fire in a setting where I can surrender completely in “safety” to go further. What a joy to find a community of dancers of life and to share this Joy in dance! I feel that it will also really enrich my personal practice. It makes me want to go further in the path of dance but I do not yet know how and where.
My life has already changed.
I shoot every night in a dream.

What I experience every day since I returned home is unspeakable. Simply, everything is stronger, more alive, more intense, joy is everywhere even in the desert. I feel like I could walk for days in the desert without that fire going out. Other times, I feel like a thirsty, feverish pilgrim looking for something I’ve tasted and know there but can’t reach. Still other times, I want to share what I live with the whole world and that the whole world lives this joy and love but only a few friends can hear me.

I feel that my path is taking a new and still unknown but essential direction. I have a stability in me, a form of determination, a strength and solidity (which was there, as a child) that I thought I would never find again. It allows me to choose where I go by refusing any choice made for others, the only choice that exists is the one that makes my sun shine. Thank you for being here. For the first time, I experienced in myself the presence of the master: I completely abandon myself to the master and his love to take the step that I could not take without him. Once this step is taken, I am no longer for Being even more. Once revealed, I shoot again. With each fall, I came out more confident, thirsty, more attentive. I offered myself even more to the experience.

I also learned and felt the difference between hopping and the support of the feet that allow to find the Earth-Sky axis. Every step is hammered by the music that guides and sustains me. This support allows verticality and balance. Without him, I waver. This is my axis of gravity. When I turn, this axis mixes with that of the Earth. When I tour, I am incredibly present, – even if my mind no longer has a grip and had to fade away for the vertigo to disappear – entirely listening to the body and this axis and the music. I am contained and gathered by this listening in the outer space where I spin and in my body: I am then one and nothing at the same time. The gestures are still mysterious to me, I feel their differences and how they resonate with my heart. But I still don’t take enough time to taste the changes in slow motion, related to the heart.

I turned facing the sun on Christmas Day, my feet in the damp grass; I shot in New Year’s during a celebration with friends dear to my heart.
Great joy to find you again.

In the context of Sufi dance, Rana has a very special way of transmitting her art. And this is something very interesting for those who feel called to the study of this dance.
Rana gives and asks for a lot in return, and it is precisely this requirement that will allow the overcoming of achievements, securities, habits, comforts, to always go further, beyond his own limitations. Rana never gives up…

A great quality for a teacher. Thus, this spirit of rigor accompanies all its transmission which is expressed through: anchoring, technique, exploration, creativity … in terms of the broad outline.
When I met Rana, I had this need to be firmer in my support, to anchor the technique, to develop the power, to dare to lose my bearings. Rana has accompanied me on this path and I express my gratitude to her today.

We never go somewhere by chance, but it is Destiny that guides us all. It is thanks to this that I met Rana, first the dancer, and after Rana my Sufi dance master, this to say my guide to the roots of the movement.

I have always loved dancing, it is a necessity of my body, a need that gives me freedom and joy, but one day I realized that I was looking for an explanation, in short, the essence and origin of all this.
My love for Iran, its music and dance, for Persian poetry and its connection to spirituality and Sufism… Fate brought me to my first seminar, August 2015.

Crest – it means being immediately touched by two things: a crossroads and a small hill, metaphors for my state of mind at this moment in my life; the need to make a choice and walk a path to rise.
To tell the truth, during this week, I had experiences that are difficult to explain in words; I wanted to go beyond my dance and I found myself facing myself: a soul that seeks itself. The road is long, the difficulties and obstacles are still there.

By living a seminar or a Sufi dance workshop the work is tiring and we know the fear, yes, the fear of vertigo, of falling, of vomiting the soul … That’s why we have to trust the master. Rana has always been at home to my body and mind with a look, a word, the silence that speaks; Even the presence of a (very important) group helped me. Sometimes I wanted to go to the end of the hill at a running pace, but you have to slow down and above all have humility (A beautiful lesson for me).

Only then can we understand how the physical preparation, the meditation, the eyes closed, the breaths, the heartbeat to the sound of the daf and the ney, led me to Samâ, to the sacred dance and then it is the pleasure of turning (“Find it, Tiziana!”), to be a magic lantern.

After my first seminar many things in my life have changed, Sama has now become my prayer and I still need my master who I know is there.
On the way, with my skirt and my daf, I am listening…