by Banafsheh | Nov 11, 2018 |
5-day workshop with Tony Khalife and Eskandar Alexander
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How would you like to bring all of yourself to the dance and be the living YES?
Dance is the joy of the soul and the body. The soul’s entry into the body is a dance. Regardless of what you do and what your work is, your soul wants to dance, touch and kiss the infinite, and that can only happen through trusting, letting go and listening to your own divine essence.
Rumi’s vision of sacred passion in action is returning to galvanize our hearts and minds. Dive in and embody his passionate and transformative message and immerse yourself in a sacred field of empowering grace that supports you in living with reverence and light from your deepest passion in the very midst of life.
Sacred dance is not just about feeling blissed out and flying into transcendent light. It’s about uncovering your purpose for being alive and doing the real work of radical embodiment, where you feel yourself as light and matter, male and female, your divine self and shadow, all at once, simply, nakedly, presently, right here, right now as a instrument of love in the world.
Join Banafsheh and musicians Tony Khalife and Eskandar Alexander in a wild, deep and nurturing weave of structured and free-style dance, whirling, chanting, live music, meditation, wisdom teachings, and lots of laughter. The workshop includes a performance and ecstatic dance celebration.
Open to all!
Suitable for women and men with little or no background in movement or dance as well as trained dancers, yoga and other movement practitioners. The only pre-requisite is a desire to connect your mind, body and soul through sacred movement.
Tuition (+lodging): $675-$5,605
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More info: Email or call 831.667.3000
26 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
For more information about the retreat, including what to bring – Click Here!
A guide and a mystic, Banafsheh is an unexpected gift in my life. I have reconnected to the divine around and in me and feel empowered to share this loving with others.
– Kathi Coyle
This is deep soul healing for me. Dancing with Banafsheh and Tony is my spiritual practice. It has opened me to new truths. I love them both so much, they bring such love, joy and light into the world. I love the tenderness and the ability to flow with what is present in the moment even if it is grief. This is pure magic!
– Kira Preston
I was immensely moved! It was fun, meaningful, spiritual and educational! Helped me integrate and invigorate! I feel more ALIVE and grounded in my spirituality. I feel committed and more clear about my personal path in life.
– Deborah Braun
I have a renewed love affair with life!
– Tara Miller
by Banafsheh | Nov 2, 2018 |
Weekend workshop at Menla Retreat Center, NY
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Listen…and allow this listening to lead you into movement and a dance that opens your whole being and rouses your creative fire from the depths of peace.
If you long to meditate with movement and feel drawn to truly ground your spirituality in your body and gain practical tools for living a more energized, peaceful and lucidly creative life, this workshop is for you.
Guided by the teachings of Rumi, delve into grounding and centering techniques that awaken your body, re-connect you with the Earth and your core, so you can open your central channel, your heart and align with Spirit.
Journey into ancient and contemporary ceremonies from high energy movement to stillness and silence in preparation for Sama–deep listening with the heart.
This workshop demystifies turning, offering access to Sufi whirling meditation in a few simple steps. This method allows people of all experience levels to turn for a sustained period with ease. One enters the Sama, pure listening, and ‘is danced’. An age-old practice of the legendary Sufi masters Rumi and Shams, the Sama is an inner journey and a direct path to creativity. It dissolves mental chatter into the vast ocean of presence, and we begin to simply be…unchained, free, present, and wildly inspired.
We will also explore the love poems that poured forth from Rumi as he whirled, and the symbolism and philosophy of the Sama as a complete spiritual path, one of the clearest ways to “embody the transcendent:, which H.H. the Dalai Lama calls, ‘the true meaning of life’.
Like the ground turning green in a spring wind,
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg,
Like the universe coming into existence,
The lover wakes and whirls
In a dancing joy that kneels down in praise.
— Rumi
This workshop is on the beautiful sacred grounds of Menla Mountain Retreat. Accommodations at the retreat center are available, but not required.
Tuition (+lodging): $450-$938
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More info: Email | Call 845.688.6897
10 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
For more information about the retreat, including what to bring – Click Here!
We are learning embodied connection to our Divine nature. There have been remarkable shifts into peace for me. The preparation for “whirling” and connecting to our source energy was meticulous and thorough with great attention being given to precision and detail.
Jyoti Louise Bruun, Hollyhock 2017
This practice of oneness, through Dance, with the Beloved that is so alive in the being of you, Banafsheh, has been a total joy! A truly transformational & healing journey deeper into the love within, into the Beloved. Thank you, for the gentleness & humbleness with which you teach. Thank you for touching my heart with such deep beauty and for the reminder that the love comes from within.
Niomi Starspires, Hollyhock 2017
by Banafsheh | Sep 2, 2018 |
5-day workshop
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Dance is love made manifest. The time is NOW to connect deeply with what you truly love, to align yourself with Source energy and ignite your creative flame. In our world today, to survive and be of true service, we need to be PASSIONATELY ALIVE and PRESENT. Since “no one can truly light your flame for you and keep it alive”, says Rumi, “but yourself”, it is imperative to have a body/spirit based practice that serves as a cauldron to nourish this flame.
Dance of Oneness® is this kind of practice as it supports your living your fullest potential through loving your body and your Self, and living as a lover. It is dance as a spiritual path and a science of embodiment, integrating 3 dimensions: rigorous dance technique and free-style self expression; wisdom teachings; and healing. It is based in Tai Chi, Persian dance, whirling, flamenco and Middle Eastern tribal dances, Sufi teachings, Divine Feminine Wisdom, Christ Consciousness, Chinese Medicine and the Chakra system.
Join in a nurturing yet thrilling weave of guided and free-style dance set to world grooves, Rumi’s poetry, whirling, chanting, yoga, meditation, wisdom teachings, a sharing circle and lots of laughter.
Through peaceful groundedness, empowered embodiment and passionate engagement and service, we live our flame to the extent that even chaos can feel like home. Once you dance your passion, you begin to dance your life!
For women and men. All levels of experience are welcome.
REGISTER NOW!
More Info: Email | 800.933.6339 or 250.935.6576 outside North America
26 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
This practice of oneness, through Dance, with the Beloved that is so alive in the being of you, Banafsheh, has been a total joy! A truly transformational & healing journey deeper into the love within, into the Beloved. Thank you, for the gentleness & humbleness with which you teach. Thank you for touching my heart with such deep beauty and for the reminder that the love comes from within.
Niomi Starspires, Hollyhock 2017
by Banafsheh | Jul 1, 2018 |
Week long workshop at the New Chartres Academy
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Join Banafsheh with faculty Robert Lawlor, Jain 108, Karen Rivers, Jim Garrison, Andrew Harvey, Caroline Myss, Apela Colorado, Peggy Rubin, Calen Rayne, and Ruth Cunningham for 7 days including sacred practice, an opening session, a symposium on Sacred Geometry, immersion in the cathedral, and personal time for meditation and exploration. There will be artistic work drawing and experiencing sacred form, dream work, singing, as well as one private evening in the crypt, and another private evening in the cathedral devoted to walking the labyrinth, accompanied by Gregorian chant.
This year the sixth Liberal Art of Sacred Geometry, the structure of the architectural blueprint of the universe will be the focus of study. Euclid was the master representative of this Liberal Art, and its guiding spirit is under the aegis of Jupiter. Jupiter, carrying the principle of expansion and meaning, imbues numbers with form into a harmonic progression of Creation. Through studying geometry, participants will learn the formative principles out of which the universe is constructed and endures.
Tuition: $940-$1,510
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More info: Email | 702-358-0551
36 hrs towards Dance of Oneness® Certification Program
There is no limit as to what can be understood through the study of Sacred Geometry, as this science explores and explains the web of energy that creates and unifies all things. —Richard Dannelly
by Banafsheh | Jun 2, 2018 |
3-hour workshop with musicians Tony Khalife and Eskandar Alexander and guests
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The extreme times we live in demand that we be PRESENT, PASSIONATELY ALIVE, PEACEFUL, and stand in and for what we believe in.
The time is NOW to surrender to the power of love and dance to liberate your body and experience the living fiery passion in your heart that can initiate you into being a true human being. Dance in community with others to align your body, heart, and mind with your purpose for being alive.
Immerse yourself in Banafsheh’s transformational fusion of rigorous and healing dance with embodied spirituality set to Tony and Eskandar’s mesmerizing music from the Middle East and around the globe. Session includes guided and free-style dance, stillness, Sama (whirling), Rumi’s poetry, chanting, stretching, meditation, Sufi teachings, divine feminine wisdom, and lots of laughter.
Experience the profound movement meditation of Sama (whirling) as a way to surrender, listen for guidance from your soul and uncover and nourish your passion and purpose.
Mixed levels. Suitable for people with some background in movement or dance, trained dancers, yoga and other movement practitioners.
Dress in comfortable attire you feel beautiful in / bring flexible sole dance shoes or socks
$45 in advance and $50 at the door
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More info: Email | Call (424) 322-8071
Multiple Dates:
April 14, May 12, June 2
Click here to select a different date!
Tony Khalife is a singer, songwriter, composer, guitarist, percussionist, yogi, artist, teacher, child-soldier and messenger of love and peace. He has been performing and teaching music and facilitating dance and yoga workshops for over 30 years, blending a lifelong search for musical truth into all forms of world music. Website
Eskandar Alexander is a first generation Californian raised on Persian Sonati (traditional) music. He studied Persian Radif since 2009 and Tar since 2012 with Vahid Bayat in the lineage of Maestros Darvishkhan and Lotfi. Alexander sings and plays the Tar, Setar, Daf and Dijeradoo to induce trance states and a deep sense of heart presence. Website
My experience was subtle and deep. The magic of the dance was the medicine, but the medicine was activated and potentiated by the graceful, whole hearted presence of Banafsheh. All at once she is warmly nurturing and absolutely clear in her power and devotion to the Beloved in herself and every dancer in the room.
– Melissa Nobels
Banafsheh is the ambassador of peace, love, and oneness. She is also a healer who reconnects body and soul.
– Farzaneh Aryaee
