Afshin ghaffarian biography

Afshin Ghaffarian is an Iranian choreographer, director, dancer, and actor, participating primarily with the group "Reformances".
Afshin Ghaffarian is an Iranian choreographer, director, dancer, and actor, participating primarily with the group "Reformances".
Afshin Ghaffarian: My career as a performer began back in 1999, as a short film actor.

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Afshin Ghaffarian: from “Desert Dancer” to “Reformancer”…

The movie “Desert Dancer” ends with your arrival in France. Tell us what it was like for you when you first arrived in Europe?

Afshin Ghaffarian: In fact, I arrived in Germany first, then I came to Paris. I remember when I arrived in Europe, the first thing that I remarked in the new country was a kind of “calmness.” I remember I wrote somewhere in my diary these words: “ Here I see calmness surges into other’s eyes. It makes me feel good, but at the same time this calmness scares me! ” The calm was what I deeply needed in that time.

Do you plan to stay in France permanently?

Afshin Ghaffarian: I don’t like planning my life too much. I just try to live every instant of my life. Now a days I have my company “Reformances” here in Paris, and I live in France. I don’t like the notion of “staying permanently” in one place. Maybe that’s why I chose theatre. I like the life on stage because the stage changes, and new performances begins every day. I will be where I can be on stage. In fact

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Desert Dancer: Real-life story of secret troupe illuminates Iran

With Iran in the news, the timing of Desert Dancer couldn’t be better.

The film focuses on the real-life story of a young man who started an underground dance troupe despite a ban on dancing in the Islamic republic. Simultaneously, it provides an extended look into how people live in Iran.

Afshin Ghaffarian (Reece Ritchie) starts life as a natural dancer, as if his mind and body are programmed for such a destiny.

As a child, he studies at an underground school. When he goes to college in Tehran, he falls in with a group of like-minded students.

Desert Dancer shows two sides of Iran: the public, in which morality-enforcing thugs harass citizens into conformity; and the private, with drinking and dancing at secret nightclubs.

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For a hedonist with no higher ambition, the ability to blow off steam in a private club would be enough.

But Afshin is an artist — and, even more difficult, an artist whose art can’t really exist without an audience.

He start

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FEATURE: Dancer's story highlights importance of right to free expression

Unable to perform publicly as a dancer in his native country and concerned about the potential repercussions of his political allegiances, Mr. Ghaffarian sought asylum in France in 2009, and there began the process of his remarkable story now travelling to movie screens around the world.

The screening, which was organized by Event4Good and Sunshine Sachs PR, the production company's publicists, included a question and answer session after the closing credits rolled, and Leonardo Castilho, a UN Human Rights Officer specializing in economic, social and cultural rights, participated alongside director, Richard Raymond, and the film's two stars, Reece Ritchie and Freida Pinto.

“We normally say there are political, economic and social rights – we're talking about the right to education. We're talking about the right to participate in cultural life,” said Mr. Castilho during the discussion. “The movie and arts and culture in general – make a very important contribution through storytelling – through