(346) Tara Ghassemieh on honoring the untold story of the Iranian National Ballet
This week we are joined by Tara Ghassemieh, Principal dancer with Golden State Ballet. Tara talks with us as she discovers her place within the world of ballet and uncovers a forgotten piece of Iranian history. She tells us about her film 'Persian Swan' which is her tribute to the Iranian National Ballet and how this mission has evolved onto the stage with 'The White Feather.' If you are in the Southern California area, see 'The White Feather, A Persian Ballet Tale' June 29th at The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Tickets are available on EventBrite.
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TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was generated automatically. It’s accuracy may vary.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:00:00]:
I'm Rebecca King Ferraro.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:00:56]:
And I'm Michael Sean Breeden. And you're listening to conversations on Dance.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:01:03]:
This week, we are joined by Tara Ghassemieh, principal dancer with Golden State Ballet. Tara talks with us as she discovers her place within the world of ballet and uncovers a forgotten piece of Iranian history. She tells us about her film Persian Swan, her tribute to the Iranian National Ballet and how this mission has evolved onto the stage with The White Feather. If you are in the Southern California area, see The White Feather a Persian Ballet tale, June 29 at the Broad stage in Santa Monica. Tickets are available on eventbrite or click the link in the Show notes.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:01:40]:
Tara, thank you so much for joining us today. You are literally on the side of a highway driving to class because you're in California. We're in New York and Florida. But just thank you for taking the time. It's very early where you are, but I've been dying to talk to you ever since we got to work together on Increases, which is premiering next week, which maybe we'll get to later. But you're doing some incredible projects. It's just you've been in the news a lot. We're going to get to all of that. Let's just hear a tiny bit about your own background with ballet, like how you started dance, what your training was, early career path, that sort of thing.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:02:22]:
Well, thank you for having me, truly. It's such an honor to be here. And I love your podcast. I'm going to be real right now. It's the only podcast I've ever listened to.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:02:33]:
Oh, my God.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:02:34]:
I know. I'm the worst. Everybody's like, you need to listen to podcast, Tara. And I'm like, okay, but I started with you guys, and I've just gotten stuck. You've kept me company on my morning commute, so thank you. Yeah. And it was such a pleasure to work with you, Michael. Like, blast in the past. So much fun. I really miss you. You need to come back.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:02:58]:
I miss you, too.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:03:01]:
Well, to answer your question, to bring it to baby Tara, I started as a gymnast and an actress, actually, when I was a little kid. And as a gymnast, they recommended that I did ballet, and a lot went on, but essentially, as soon as my hand touched the bar, it was love at first sight. I dedicated my whole life to ballet. It's actually an ongoing joke in my family because I booked the job to be Sandra Bullock's daughter in that movie Practical Magic, which Michael knows me well. That's really fitting for me. Super witchy. Even as a kid, I was casted properly, and I actually turned down the movie to do Party Girl in Nutcracker.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:03:55]:
Incredible.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:03:57]:
I am still very upset with my mother on that, but that's okay. She gave me a carte blanche to make my own choices at a young age, which is a beautiful way of parenting, but I would still be getting residual checks. So, anyway, yeah, true. That's really when my family was like, okay, she's really serious about this, and we are going to do everything we can to support her. And we didn't have a lot growing up, but my family was a huge support system, and I trained here. I've done everything. I really take a lot of pride in the fact that I've trained in all forms of dance. In fact, I'm probably best at musical theater. But again, ballet took my heart, and I went to Abt School with full scholarship at 16. And when I moved to New York, unfortunately, a month before moving, I broke my back. So that was really traumatic. And I've always been super flexibendy in the back. And so to have that type of trauma alone in New York as a 16 year old, very far from my family, very far from any support, because the way the Abt School was then was we were really just alone in New York. There was no dorms, there was no supervision. So my heart broke a little bit, and because I wasn't able to be the dance that I knew, I slowly stopped loving ballet. And I actually quit for four years. And in that time so I have a very different career path than most. Most people at age 18 are, like, auditioning for companies. They're going for it. I went back to acting and was working to be on Broadway, and so I had a dance wear line, and it was quite successful. This is before Etsy and where you really had to get your stuff and, like, discount dance and Copesio and all the things. Essentially, my last day in New York before moving back to California. I remember I was just alone in my apartment, boxes everywhere, and I just started doing Liaise, and I just started to ballet. And I said, you know what, Tara? You know what you need to do now. And I moved back to California just to actually expand my dance line because I wanted to make it in America. And I went back to baby ballet classes. I went back to some old teachers of mine. I started taking class with, like, the nine year olds. I retrained my body completely, like, in Vagonova training because that was the best I had in the area. And from then on, I just never stopped. I had to be a freelance dancer here in Southern California because we don't really have a big professional ballet company. We don't have those outlets here, unfortunately, in Southern California, it is it is expanding now, but at the time and yeah, and and I've had, you know, two children. I'm raising three kids with my husband. But, you know, every single time, I just kept coming back to ballet. And I'm fully devoted, helplessly devoted.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:07:33]:
Of that whole beautiful story. This may be the wrong thing for me to pick out, but I will just confirm to our listeners that Tara's Arabesque is bonkers. Maybe that'll be the photo. Yeah. I'm like, you've had two babies and your foot is still above your head in any given arabesque. Couldn't be pretty good.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:07:58]:
Thanks, love. Well, it's not easy, and I try to be the best example I can to young female dance, especially, just to know that they can take the path less traveled. They can be a mother, they can expand their career, they can do other things and still be that ballerina that they want to be. And that's really part of my mission within the ballet world, is to say, okay, hey, we've been doing it this way for a very long time now. Let's shake it up a bit. Let's have more guest artists in big companies. Let's expand the way I just feel like ballet can almost get so cold, like, you're in your ballet company and you stay. And that's a beautiful thing. It's camaraderie, it's loyalty. But I would love to see some evolution within our arena.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:09:01]:
Yeah, right.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:09:03]:
So let's shift gears a little bit and hear about some of the projects that you're taking on right now. I'm curious to hear when you started to first really, I guess, consider your own Persian heritage and then how you realized that could intersect or the importance or significance of you being a ballerina. How would it intersect with that?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:09:27]:
Yeah, that was such a journey. I'm going to bullet point it because me being Virgo, I can go on a tangent.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:09:37]:
I'm right there with you.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:09:40]:
Are you virgo? And that's why you and Michael need each other, because Virgo needs PISCES and PISCES needs Virgo. Okay.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:09:53]:
We'll expand upon that towards the end. That sounds good.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:09:56]:
Exactly. We'll have an astrology podcast next. Okay. But for me, actually, it was five years ago, and I'm just going to get really personal because I'm a very vulnerable person. I think that being vulnerable is actually one of the greatest strengths in being human. Again. I came to a crossroads with ballet. My partner and now husband. Vitro louise he was the principal of San Francisco Ballet. I was in Southern California. We both came together with one child, my oldest son, Vincent, and his daughter Luciana. They are ten months apart. And so we had a bit of a difficult situation in how can we merge our lives. And I, unfortunately, was not allowed to move to San Francisco with my son due to his biological father being in Southern California. And that was really my goal and dream, was for us to have our life in San Francisco so we could both dance. And then that was cut. And I was devastated. I literally started classes to be a real estate agent. I didn't know how I was going to make ends meet. We didn't know how we were going to come together and start our life, but we knew we wanted to have a life and a family together. And essentially, somehow, some way, I was working with a girl and she was like, my friend needs to channel for you. And I said, I don't know, I can channel. And so I don't really like people channeling for me. I was just, I don't know, putting walls up. And anyways, this woman called me and she's now my angel, Tiffany, and she had this huge vision, and I'd never met her in my life, didn't pay her a dollar. She just had this vision, and she saw rows and rows of women standing in Chador. And if you're not familiar with Chador, is it's the full black, like the hijab, but all the way to the browns that they wear within the Muslim religion and in Islam and in Iran, she saw rows and rows of women in Chador pointing at me. And very quickly after that, I saw this vision of women removing hijab and burning it. And I was like, what does this mean? And why am I dancing in point shoes in this vision? And this is five years ago. And so I just started literally, it started with a Google search at 1111 at Night Ballet and Iran, it started there. And I found out that there was an Iranian national ballet. I said, oh my God. And that Nuriyev had dance there. And Margot Fontaine and Makara Vice. What? My mind just blew. I said, how am I? Iranian. And I didn't know this. It was the biggest ballet company for 20 years in the Middle East. And then it was dissolved with the Islamic Republic coming to Iran in 1979, and they've been there ever since. And then I continued to dig deeper and found out that ballet is actually currently illegal in Iran. And if you're going to dance ballet, you're doing it underground and you are risking your life. And then I went, Wait, hold on, hold on. Is there any other Iranian American ballerina? Okay. No, I couldn't find any. And then I went, Wait, has there ever been an Iranian American, like, principal dancer? And I couldn't find any. And from just these thought patterns and this research and kind of diving down into myself, I realized, wow, that's your mission. That's why you always came back to ballet. That's why you could never give it up. No matter how many times ballet didn't love you, you loved it. And you never gave up. And you never gave up baby after baby and broken back and this and that, and it just clicked. It was like when you finish, connect the dots. And it was that last dot. And from there, everything manifested itself. I was working on another film that never panned out, but that was a really good learning journey for me. And then Vitor and I, the pandemic happened. Vitro and I got pregnant. We decided to expand our family, have one baby to kind of merge the other two babies. And from there, honestly, you guys, I sat with this knowing for three and a half years. I went off social media and I just grounded myself because I realized this mission was so much bigger than a standing ovation on the Met one day, which was like the dream I would go to bed with every night. It changed. Everything shifted. And it was about, okay, you're going to dance until the day that your point shoes are on stage in New York sorry, in Iran. Rudaki hall in Iran. And you are going to bring ballet back to Iran, and you're going to make it accessible for the first time ever, because it never was truly accessible. It was really for the elite, and that was it. And so from there, all of these projects and things that I had been developing came to fruition. And we can touch on those things, but that's really how it started, was I was just in this very dark place within myself and not knowing that I could keep ballet in my life. And this knowing just struck me. It was a blessing, really.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:15:38]:
How did you kind of start to create a plan? Now I have this mission statement kind of, how am I going to start to make this happen? What were your first steps?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:15:50]:
Well, the first step, to be honest, somebody had contacted me, and this is actually within two weeks of me king this research and finding out my own truth. And this is where I truly believe in the universe and how your thoughts just create your reality. But I could not stop thinking about it. I couldn't even sleep. And I just was like, Where do I even start? Tara, what do you do with this? And somebody had contacted me. It was a producer working on a film. And I was involved with that project for most of the pandemic, very quietly. And the project never happened, mainly because of financial things and everything. But that was a very good space for me to learn and also refresh my own memory as to how to be a filmmaker, because I was in front of the camera a lot as a kid, and I'd always been very producer minded, but I needed to really learn the back end of film. So I got to be in this place where I was watching a film in pre production, and I learned a lot. And then when that film didn't pan out, I said, okay, Tara, this is your mission. It's always been your mission. So that was like going to school almost. And then from there, I said, okay, you're going to pick up and you're going to carry this because it's yours. And I literally just said, you know what? You're going to find a cameraman and you're king to do this renegade style. You're going to direct it, you're going to produce it, and you're going to get in front of the camera. And it's really scary to put yourself out there because you have to have a lot of belief in what you're trying to do, but you're going to do it because you're going to do it for people that need you to do this. And so that's really where Persian Swan was born. And that was always a nickname of mine. I had some terrible nicknames growing up, like very bully. But this one I loved. And I just kept it, and it kind of came in and out of my life. And I said, you know what? You're going to hold this nickname and you're going to keep it. Because it really helped me compartmentalize all the facets of my life. Sometimes being Tara, who's the mom and the teacher and all these things, needs to separate from Persian Sean. And so that's why the short film was named Persian Swan. And really it was just this vision I had of seeing this woman abandoned in point shoes in red in the desert. And that's all I saw. And so we got to that desert. It's a really freaky place where I found this spot. It's like radioactive sand. And, yeah, it's pretty nuts. California is a crazy state, but the location was incredible. And we shot that in two days with a two man crew. And I went to my friend Kelly. She's been my best friend, Kelly Johnstone. She's a producer on many news stations. At the time, she was working for CNN in New York. I said, Kelly, I need you to help me produce this. And she said, Tara, I've been waiting for the day for you to say that to me. She's just always been so supportive of me, no matter what, through everything. And so from there, it's just crazy stories. Like, I was getting my hair done in a hair salon, and my lady is Persian, of course, and she was brushing my Persian hair, and she said, I think you need to meet my friend Eltuzi. Eltuzi happens to be like this badass investigative journalist who's Iranian and just took the project and made it lie. And so now, between me, Kelly, and L, persian Swan became a digital media piece. I broke it up into three parts. They're like three short shorts and really, it's a prequel preamble to a full featured documentary film that we are in production shooting right now about the Iranian National Ballet. And so that's really what I wanted to cover was because what people don't know is the Islamic Republic burned. And when I say burned, I mean actually took fire to every costume of the Iranian National Ballet. They burned all evidence of professional ballet existing in the country.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:20:25]:
And when was this?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:20:27]:
In 1979. So in 1979. Imagine you have been and this is an international company. In fact, there was only a handful of people from Iran dancing, and they were from Europe. They were from America. There was a dancer from Texas. They were everywhere because I had to find them. And they were all dancing. And suddenly, slowly but surely, they were not given things like, suddenly, they weren't given a needle and thread to sew a shoe, or they weren't given shoes, or they weren't given rosin. And it was about a month or two, this trickle effect where dancers were fleeing and fleeing, and by the last day of their contract, they went to them and said, okay, you are done dancing. If you ever want to dance again, you need to leave the country right now. So your choice was either exile the country of Iran to dance or to stay in the country and not dance. The only option you had was to join the theater and be an actress. And so that is how the Iranian National Ballet dissolved, and ballet has not legally reentered the country since.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:21:46]:
So have you been finding these people that were a part of the ballet and speaking with them that's, I assume, a big part of this project?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:21:53]:
Yeah. So the documentary is essentially finding them and getting their story, because what people don't understand is that the evidence has been burned. This is back in 1979. So if we do not document these people and their story, then that history dies with them. It's gone. And so we are in this huge rush to document these beings that some are well into their 90s. So that's kind of the mission we're on right now. And Persians one, this short film we made was really just introducing me solemnly as the lone Iranian American principal dancer and how I discovered the Iranian National Ballet. And through my lens, hearing that story and then my ballet, the White Feather, stemmed from that because it's honoring them. So everything has just been a stepping stone, really, to bringing to not just the dance community, but the world, this piece of history. And how are we going to bring ballet back? How are we going to make it accessible for the first time ever in this country? Like, how are little girls and little boys going to be able to go pick up ballet shoes and walk into a room safely and put their hand on the bar? Like, I got to do. And so that's what all of these projects are about, really.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:23:29]:
Yeah.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:23:30]:
Right. It's such a journey. Can you talk a little bit about the White Feather since you just brought that up and we haven't delved into that at all?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:23:40]:
Yeah. I'd always dreamed of making a Persian ballet. I always thought I'd like recreate Shaharazad, which I did. My husband and I got to reinvent that cottage, which I just absolutely love is the first thing we co choreographed together.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:23:57]:
It's the most beautiful music ever, you must have felt.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:24:03]:
Oh, yeah, we put a kiss in there. Everything. We made it like an aladdin Romeo and Juliet. We made it very deep. I'll share that video with you one day, Michael. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, but I always knew that that's what I wanted to do. But how, when, why? Where? All the questions and when we started talking about how we're going to produce this documentary. What is Tara's role? Right. She didn't dance with the Iranian National Ballet. She is the first Iranian American principal dancer. But how do we navigate her into this documentary outside of her traveling the world and finding these dancers? And so what I really wanted to do was make a show for them. And mind you, this is all pre woman life, freedom. So that's something I want to make very clear. All of this has been in the works for the past five years wow. Which is the craziest part about it, right? And so in the process of like, okay, am I going to create some sort of, like, gala? Am I going to get a bunch of Iranian artists? Am I going to get the dance like, these Iranian instruments and have people dance out? Like, what am I going to do to honor the Iranian National Ballet? And so I was talking with my husband and my dear, dear, dear Iranian friend I can't even call her friend, she's my sister. Her name is Thanos Kultani. She was the first Persian person I met in the ballet club. She started ballet very late in life. She's like the city attorney of Carson. She brought football to La. She's just this badass Persian woman attorney, but she's very artistically in tune. And I'll never forget we're doing Sean's Maz in class one day and literally a voice in my head was like, Turn around. And I turned around and I was like, are you Persian? And she said, Balik, which actually is how you say yes and Farsi, I was like, I freaked out. And so we connected right then and there. And so I went to her, I said, Sanas, what are we going to do? And she had already had this vision of a Persian ballet because her father was publicly assassinated when she was five years old by the Islamic Republic because he was general to the Shah. And the Shah was the former King of Iran. And her and her family had to flee Iran after her father was assassinated at five years old. And so I've always just had this deep purpose to tell her dad's story, somehow, through the medium of dance, and so did she. It was actually her idea of how she always wanted to do a ballet that told her dad's story. And so basically, they were like, we are going to do an Iranian ballet. And I was like, you guys, you're crazy. I'm going to have to direct, produce, choreograph and star in a ballet that you want me to premiere in three months. You're out of your mind. Have $0. How am I going to do that? I have a wand, but how am I king to whip that up? And they were just like, Tara, you have to trust, this is your purpose. You can do this. We're going to do this with you. And so we did. And then my husband had this brilliant idea that Act One would be revolution One and Act Two would be revolution two, because right as we started talking about this, masa Amini was murdered and the revolution woman life, freedom in Iran started. And, I mean, it was, like, two weeks after it started that we had had that dinner, and we decided, we're going to do this. And I'm going to find a way to create the first written Iranian ballet. And we are going to talk about all of the freedom fighters and unsung heroes of Iran through the medium of ballet. And that is how the white feather was born. And I got to say, obviously, I'm biased, obviously, but I've never really seen a ballet like ours. Not just because there are women in hijab or we're hearing classical music with the Persian twist and, yeah, there's some spoken word in there, which is very different for ballet, but it's a healing journey and there's a big moment with the inner child. And I've never gone to bow and looked in the audience and seen grown men like I mean, men well into their seventy s eighty s balling, and I'm just bawling. And so I think I just love this ballet so much because it's very transformative and that's how I wanted to create. It was not necessarily maybe to be the best ballet in history, right, but to be the most touching and the most emotionally rewarding to the audience. Because it's not a traditional ballet, really. It's a show. I Sean. She belongs on Broadway. To be honest, that's obviously the dream. We sold out at the Barclays Irvine and we just realized she's not done. The world needs to see her. This is obviously my tribute to woman life. Freedom. Iran is not free yet. September will be a year of this woman led revolution, and I'm going to keep taking the White Feather all over the world until it can go to Iran. And that's obviously part of the mission. So yeah. So we just announced the Dance for Freedom Tour. We're performing at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica in Los Angeles on June 29. And then we come to San Francisco and New York in September.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:30:13]:
Wow, that's incredible. So I'll be able to see it?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:30:17]:
Yes. Don't worry. Michael.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:30:24]:
Hopefully Miami, too.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:30:25]:
Rebecca oh, I would love that. Yeah, keep us posted.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:30:28]:
We'll be sure to share. I mean, it just sounds I got chills hearing you talk about this. It's so incredible.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:30:35]:
Thank you. Yeah, I just want people to connect with ballet in a deeper level. I think arenas were always so fond upon, like, oh, look at her legs, look at her feet, look at her turn. And that's a beautiful thing, right? Because we are just these superhuman specimens and we work our whole life to sculpt that and really create that. But what about the human element, to being a ballerina and to being a dancer? And how can we touch that human element and really connect to the heart of people? And I think that's what the white feather does.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:31:09]:
And I'm just thinking, too, like, how many talented kids we may have lost that didn't have the opportunity to try. Like, there could have been stars in all those years in Iran that we didn't get to be a part of, that they didn't get to be a part of ballet. And it's wonderful what you're doing, I think.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:31:28]:
Oh, thank you. And Persian Swans Ballet school is running underground.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:31:34]:
Okay.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:31:34]:
Stars coming out of Iran soon, right?
Michael Sean Breeden [00:31:38]:
Yes.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:31:39]:
But one last thing that we did want to ask, though, if our listeners would like to support your mission and support what you're doing. How can they do that?
Tara Ghassemieh [00:31:47]:
That's wonderful. I try and be as diligent as I can with my Instagram. I went off all social media for multiple years, so I really just can only manage Instagram at this point. But if you go to my handle, Persian Swan, you'll see everything there. My link tree is there. And within my link tree. I think even if you just go to Link tree and type in my name, Tara Gosamia. You'll see there's a website for the Persian swan film that you can get a digital ticket to intuitive Art Ship, which is my husband and I company and the company that is presenting the white feather. That website is up there. You can get tickets to the White Feather Through eventbrite. That's also linked in my link tree. But even if you just went to Eventbrite.com and typed in The White Feather, you would see our show in La. And just obviously following along through Instagram is the easiest thing to do. And I always post my interviews and things up there. And really what I would love for listeners to do and to support this mission, outside of buying tickets to The White Feather or Persian Swan and supporting me, please support Iran. Please speak up. Because people aren't hearing about this on mainstream media. It's really social media's only way and that is how the word is getting out there that people are on the streets. I Sean. There are 18,000 political prisoners right now arrested. Most of them are under the age of 25 years old. There is a couple that was arrested for doing nothing but going like doing a little square dance but it was a man and a woman and she wasn't wearing hijab. And they are detained in prison for eleven years for dancing in public. And I think it's time that dancers speak up about this. This is our craft, this is our passion, this is what we love to do. And these people are just trying to be happy and free and dance and that is our birthright that nobody can take away. And so the more we band together through humanity and especially our dance family and speak up about this, the closer we will get to bringing them freedom and it really does work. Power in numbers. So please talk about Iran. If you see something that you want to repost, repost it. We have Dance in jail right now for just trying to be dance and so just word of mouth, talk about it. If you want to support my project, amazing, I really appreciate that. But more importantly, please support Iran and please support women, life, freedom.
Michael Sean Breeden [00:34:32]:
Thank you so much, Tara, that was so powerful. We can't wait to share with our listeners.
Tara Ghassemieh [00:34:36]:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Love to all.
Rebecca King Ferraro [00:34:47]:
Conversations on Dance is part of the Acas creator network. For more information visit conversationsondancepod.com.