Born and raised in Iran, Shahrzad has been passionately involved in dance since childhood. She studied Dance and Performance Art at the California Institute of the Arts, and she holds a BA in Dance, as well as an MA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University. Her dance training includes Modern, Jazz, Ballet, West African, Afro-Haitian, Congolese, and an introduction to Senegalese, Balinese and Flamenco.
Drawing upon her deep familiarity of authentic Persian dance, her formal dance training, and her intrinsic knowledge of Persian aesthetics, Shahrzad is a pioneer in Persian dance and quite possibly the first to create a formalized dance vocabulary and structure for Persian dance, helping in the artistic development and dissemination of an art form that has been outlawed in Iran for the past three decades.
Her system includes the introduction of fundamental Persian body positions and movement, categorization and designation of nomenclature to movements, assembly of movement into choreographed phrases, and composition of dance pieces woven intricately with Persian music.
