Photographs Reveal How Iranian Girls Have Used Dance as Resistance

An Iranian photographer explores how ladies have used dance as resistance within the social and political historical past of her native nation.

Across Iran’s trendy historical past, dance has mirrored altering concepts round id, freedom, and self-expression. Through pictures, movies, and archival supplies, Iranian artist Hannah Darabi explores how dance has been used as a type of cultural expression and resistance in her exhibition Why Don’t You Dance? on the Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Running till November 1, 2026, Darabi’s Why Don’t You Dance? is impressed by the “Woman, Life, Freedom” motion, a nationwide protest in opposition to restrictive legal guidelines imposed on ladies by the Iranian authorities. The exhibition examinespopular dance as a robust type of identity-based resistance — and the advanced relationship between such cultural expression and modern Iran.

The exhibition is split into three sections, every specializing in a key determine from Iran’s well-liked dance scene. Together, the sections join totally different intervals of historical past and discover experiences in each Iran and the Iranian diaspora.

The first part of the exhibition facilities on Mahvash, a number one cabaret performer of the Fifties.The second part focuses on Jamileh, a famend performer of stomach dance and “Jaheli dance,” a preferred fashion rooted in Iranian city tradition.The remaining part examines Mohammad Khordadian, a dancer and choreographer from the Iranian pop scene in Los Angeles. Turning her consideration to the Iranian diaspora, Darabi paperwork nights on the legendary Cabaret Tehran, a central gathering place for Iranians in Southern California and a website the place cultural practices continued in exile.

Drawing on the tales of those three figures, Darabi reveals how dance has endured by a shift in Iranian society, from conventional gender expectations towards extra trendy types of expression. Here, leisure turns into a political act, archives turn out to be instruments of resistance, and efficiency turns into an expression of joyful resilience.

Why Don’t You Dance? runs till November 1, 2026, on the Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.