Heather Rastovac ~ Dances of the Iranian World & Near East~ Performer and Instructor

Above photo: Persian/Tajik dances,

Seattle TurkFest 10/2007.

Photography by Julia Bruk.

Above photo: Persian dance, Seattle Art Museum, January 2007.

Above photo: Persian tea glass dance,

Seattle TurkFest 2005.

(Above and below photography by Byron Dazey.)

Below photo: Kurdish folk dance,

with Adrian Laine of Banat Sahar music and dance troupe.

Seattle TurkFest 2005.

Below photo: Shiekhatt (Moroccan folkdance)

with Banat Sahar music and dance troupe.

Seattle Arab Festival 2005.

Photography by Dina Lydia.

Below photo: Raqs Khaleeji

(folkdance of the Saudi Arabian peninsula)

Seattle Arab Festival 2005.

Below photo: Raqs Shaabi

(Tunisian folkdance)

with Banat Sahar Middle Eastern music and dance troupe.

Seattle Arab Festival 2005.

Below photo: Reng-e Guilaki

(folkdance of Northern Iran)

with Shourangeez Persian music and dance ensemble.

NW Folklife Festival 2002.

Heather Rastovac

has been studying, performing and teaching various forms of Persian/Iranian and Near Eastern dance since 1997. As a soloist and an artistic director of Delshodeh dance ensemble, Heather performs the regional and classical dance forms of

Iran, Tajikistan, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.

Delshodeh Persian and Central Asian Dance Ensemble is Heather Rastovac and Sonja Hinz's newest artistic endeavor (www.delshodeh.org, www.sonjahinz.com). Both Heather and Sonja participate in Delshodeh as artistic directors, dancers, choreographers, researchers and lecturers. Both dancers were also members of Shourangeez Persian music and dance ensemble from 2001 - 2004 and participated in the Folklife in the Schools program across Western Washington. Heather has also performed dances of the Arab World (North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf) with Banat Sahar Middle Eastern Music and Dance Ensemble, as well as dances from Bosnia/Herzagovina with Sevdah Dance Ensemble. Heather considers herself a perpetual dance student and continues to study ballet, modern, and various other dance forms.

Heather engages in extensive studies of Near Eastern cultures, languages, arts, music, poetry, religions and politics. In June 2008, she received her Bachelor's degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (focusing on Persian language) with minors in Dance and Anthropology from the University of Washington. In August 2009, she began her doctoral studies in UC Berkeley's department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies (http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/theater/AboutUs/index-about.html). Heather has traveled extensively and has visited Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, India and several countries in the Mediterranean for dance, language and cultural studies.