Lions Gate Sinfonia presents East Meets West, with special guests Hossein Behroozinia and the Vancouver Pars National Ballet, Saturday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. at Centennial Theatre, 2300 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver. Tickets: $12-$39 at centennialtheatre. com or 604-984-4484.
Azita Sahebjam was a classical ballerina back in Tehran and performed on stages across Iran and Europe until the Islamic Revolution of 1979 put an end to dancing.
Under the new republic, the country's national ballet company was dissolved and many of its members emigrated. When Sahebjam moved to Canada in 1988, she abandoned her goal of remaining a ballerina and turned her attention to a new mission: preserving the lost art of Iranian traditional and folklore dances and presenting these dances to the world.
To that end, in 1989 she founded the Vancouver Pars National Ballet, a group of dancers dedicated to saving an ethnic art form at risk of extinction. Over the last quarter century, Sahebjam's troupe has performed more than 800 shows worldwide.
On Feb. 27, the dancers are collaborating for the first time with the Lions Gate Sinfonia to present East Meets West at Centennial Theatre. The show, which brings together performing art and culture from the Eastern and the Western worlds, will also feature barbat player Hossein Behroozinia, a master of the traditional Persian stringed instrument.
As Sahebjam explains, the name of her dance group reflects their use of classical ballet techniques to present their traditional and folk dances, most of which are inspired by classical Persian poetry and art.
The group has about a dozen members, though only about half will be performing at East Meets West. All are female, though Sahebjam says men are more than welcome to join, and there's a mix of ages and ethnicities. Many of the group's younger members were born in Canada to Iranian parents, she says.
"Some of them have never been in Iran, but they love to understand their ro ots and their culture."
It's been especially rewarding for Sahebjam to dance shoulder to shoulder with young women, including her own daughter, who have been under her tutelage since they were just children.
"That's the best part of teaching and keeping the culture alive," she says.
Vancouver Pars National Ballet will be performing two five-minute dances on Feb. 27, each featuring costumes from the group's extensive collection.
Meanwhile, representing the "West" in East Meets West, Lions Gate Sinfonia's principal horn player Duncan Shaw will perform Vaughan Williams' English Folk Songs and Canadian composer Keith Bissell's "Under the Apple Boughs," a piece inspired by folk music, Dylan Thomas' poems, and Canadian landscapes.
Notes from the Araxes Basin:
The Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra is presenting, Global Soundscapes Festival: Notes From the Araxes Basin, a Festival of Middle Eastern music over the next 10 days.
Vancouver-based musicians and composers will collaborate with virtuoso soloists from Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon and Iran, and visiting Canadian ensembles from Victoria and Montreal, to present traditional, contemporary and intercultural music of the Middle East and Canada.
On Tuesday, Feb. 23, as part of the festival, Hossein Behroozinia will perform with Gevorg Dabaghyan from Armenia (on duduk) and Neva Özgen from Turkey (on kemençe) at North Vancouver's Gordon Smith Gallery, beginning at 9:30 a.m. For more information visit vi-co.org.
