Farima Berenji is an award winning Dance Ethnologist and internationally acclaimed dance artist, choreographer, instructor, and Sufi dance master. Recognized and certified as one of the few world scholarly experts of ancient and mystical Iranian dance ethnology by UNESCO.Farima has worked as a UN scholar, researching and led an excavations team of Iranian archeology emphasizing the preservation of ancient and mystical Iranic dances. Farima teaches her own unique movement and techniques that are researched and inspired during her various studies in Khaneqas (Sufi Houses) and Fire temples of Khorasan, Kurdistan, Tehran, Shiraz, and various areas in Central Asia. Farima has traveled and devoted many years of her life, excavating, researching, and uncovering the mysterious history of ancient warriors and commanders of ancient Persia. Along with her archaeological and dance research Farima has studied ancient battle movements, armory, and the connections between these movements with modern dance form.Farima is one of the few Iranian women who has been allowed to teach, write and perform the Gwati and Vahishta Sema Rituals in Iran and around the world and has been recognized by Iran and UN as the pioneer of bringing back the original mystic Rituals of Khorasan. She is the first Iranian woman to have received the UNESCO award and certification and is currently the dance ambassador of UNESCO, the first Iranian woman artist to receive the National Folk Dance Association award, and the first Iranian woman and dancer to have been chosen to speak and perform for TED Talk.Farima and her collective were the first Iranian, to have been invited and perform during a reception for US President Obama, Governor of Alaska, United Nations, European Union, Ambassador of Canada, and for the Ambassador of Spain.
