Welcoming the New:
Dancing the Awakening Light
A 2-Day Event at Astralab, LA
Located at the Granada Buildings
678 S La Fayette Park Place
Activate healing and reconnect with the inner resources needed to meet this moment with courage, integrity, and love through embodied practices rooted in Divine Feminine wisdom, as transmitted in Banafsheh’s new book, Dance of Oneness: Embody Love & Luminosity to Transform Your Life.
Saturday, March 14
Price: $45
Ticket sales close at 8:00pm March 14
Sacred Dance Prayer with Live Music, Video Art, Book Reading and Open Dance for Freedom
7pm – 9:30pm PT
Join Banafsheh, video artist Shaghayegh Cyrous and musicians Dani Khorsandi and Arezoo Koochakan and other guest musicians for a luminous evening where movement, music, and prayer converge in dance. In a time of profound grief and upheaval in Iran, we gather not to turn away from what is happening, but to ground together — to remember Divine Feminine wisdom — the power of embodied love and collective presence.
The evening will open with a dance and music prayer, invoking and honoring the deep cultural and spiritual roots of Iran, dedicated to the heroic freedom fighters in Iran. Following this, is an intimate reading from Dance of Oneness: Embody Love & Luminosity to Transform Your Life, with Banafsheh sharing personal stories behind the words and why the sacred work of embodiment is the most important thing we can do to awaken peace and positive change.
After the reading, you’ll have the opportunity to dance and release heavy emotions and overwhelm, and to replenish with the vital energy, clarity, and resilience needed to meet the challenges we face.
This shared movement returns us to the body, restoring inner balance, and reconnecting with purpose.
We’ll explore how embodied practice can help us stay centered, courageous, and clear — so our actions arise from integrity, compassion, and in service to the greatest good of all.
This gathering will include unique Middle Eastern refreshments, and time to connect in community. Books will be available for purchase, and Banafsheh will be honored to sign copies.
Sacred beverages and bites to awaken the heart, calm the mind, and ground us in presence. Included in your ticket price.
Hot Elixirs
Ember Rose: Hot tulsi, rose, wild cherry bark, vanilla + toasted marshmallow (a decaf hot tea that is pretty special)
Crystal Chai: Spiced chai with crystallized ginger, infused in oat milk, a decaf blend with rooibos
Cold Infusions
Persian Nectar: Orange blossom, rose, hibiscus, zalzalak berry and lime with a floral honey rim
Blume: Butterfly pea flower, starflower and elderflower tonic
Bites
Middle Eastern meze and sweets freshly prepared onsite and available for sale.
Sunday, March 15
2 New Sacred Dance Workshops – Limited Space!
$35 Each | Attend both for $60!
Registration closes at 8:00am March 15
The Pulse of Life: Feminine Embodiment through Sacred Dance
11:30am – 1pm PT
Enter the field of the Divine Feminine — the wise, noble, fierce, and tender creational energy of life — through sacred movement, breath, and deep embodied presence.
Drawing from her new book, Dance of Oneness: Embody Love & Luminosity to Transform Your Life, Banafsheh will guide you to reconnect with your sacred sensuality, reignite your aliveness, release constriction and heavy emotions held in the body, and consciously transmute them into grounded strength, clarity, and life-affirming vitality.
Connecting with the Divine Feminine is a profound initiation that restores reverence for the body and awakens both individual and collective well-being, as you align more deeply with the truth of your soul’s purpose and path.
Benefits of this Workshop
Reconnect with your sacred sensuality and feel fully alive in your body.
Attune to the fierce, courageous, and tender wisdom of the Divine Feminine.
Dissolve inner constriction and open to ease, acceptance, and flow.
Align with your soul’s truth and illuminate your true purpose and hidden gifts.
Dance Experience & Preparation
Mixed Levels: All are welcome.
This workshop offers a strong preparation for the afternoon session and is recommended to be taken as a continuous journey.
Please bring a water bottle with you.
Dress in comfortable attire suitable for movement that you feel beautiful in.
Please carpool.
Sufi Whirling: The Dance of Becoming with Live Daf Drumming
SOLD OUT!
2 – 4pm PT
Learn the foundations of Sufi whirling through a feminine approach, guided by the live rhythms of the women’s LA Daf Ensemble. This practice offers not only a sacred form, but guidance for how to remain centered, receptive, and responsive in times of uncertainty and turmoil.
Modern science and ancient mysticism alike reveal that life begins in the spin—from atoms to the cosmos. Through whirling, you learn to attune to this universal force, cultivating the capacity needed to meet life’s challenges without losing your center, awakening a deep sense of balance and belonging within the greater dance of creation.
Banafsheh’s effective approach prevents dizziness. Through surrender and deep listening, you’ll learn how to access the wisdom that supports clarity, resilience, and trust.
Couldn't Get In?
Check out Banafsheh’s live online course, Embody Love as Spiritual Power, a 4-week sacred dance journey beginning April 18 to activate love as a living, transformative spiritual technology — one that restores harmony within, radiates outward, and empowers you to move through the world with authenticity, compassion, clarity, and luminous strength.
Benefits of this Workshop
Find yourself in the dance of creation, activating presence and spiritual guidance
Awaken stability, belonging, and harmony within the interconnected web of life.
Learn a feminine approach to whirling that feels safe and prevents dizziness.
Discover the hidden power of stillness in motion and connect with the Divine.
Dance Experience & Preparation
Mixed Levels: All are welcome.
Dress in comfortable attire. White attire is recommended but not required.
Don't eat a heavy meal one hour of our workshop.
Bring socks or soft soled dance shoes for whirling.
Bring a water bottle.
Get Your Copy of the Dance of Oneness Book!
Embody Love and Luminosity to Transform Your Life
Discover how spiritual embodiment through sacred dance leads to healing, transformation, joyful liberation, and living a more vibrant, aligned, and abundant life with this empowering, interactive guide to embodied spirituality.
What Experts in Transformation & Healing Say About The Dance of Oneness Modality for Healing & Transformation:
In both sacred dance workshops, you'll discover:
About Banafsheh
Banafsheh Sayyad, MFA, Choreography and MA, Chinese Medicine, is a master sacred dancer, choreographer, and visionary teacher of spiritual embodiment whose life’s work is devoted to helping people activate greater health, awareness, and resilience through conscious movement.
Internationally acclaimed for her pioneering fusion of spirituality and sensuality, she is the founder of Dance of Oneness®, a Divine Feminine lineage of healing and transformation uniting Sufi whirling, Persian dance, flamenco, mysticism, and Taoist wisdom.
Her forthcoming book, Dance of Oneness (St. Martin’s Essentials, March 2026), invites readers to rediscover the body as a portal to presence, vitality, and joy. Drawing from her own awakening through dance that transmuted the pain of exile from Iran, Banafsheh weaves Rumi’s poetry, feminine mysticism, and embodied healing into a radiant call to live as a channel of love and light. Born in Iran to legendary filmmaker Parviz Sayyad, she defied cultural taboos to create a feminine expression of Sufi whirling, transforming dance into a pathway of liberation, divine communion, and activism.
Through her non-profit Dance of Oneness and her transformative teachings at centers such as Esalen, Kripalu, Omega, and Hollyhock, Banafsheh has inspired thousands across the world to awaken, embody love, and dance the divine into being.
