Who Can I Dance With?

Arash Dabestani emigrated from Iran to California when he was 27. The language barrier made it hard to connect with people, and on top of that, he was going blind. He eventually stumbled on a dance studio and an owner, Nancy, who supported him in his journey to learn how to dance. Dabestani writes a moving essay on belonging, finding one’s confidence, and the freedom found in movement and music.

The party music was all smuggled in from Los Angeles. Whenever a VHS tape of a music video was shown, people would catch a glimpse of what dancing looked like and mimic it however they could. But they didn’t really have any experience—and so, gradually, dance lost its identity as an art form in Iran. It lingered only at private gatherings, where people would move their bodies in ways that barely resembled dance—rigid, mechanical, almost comical. Among women, when no men were present, the motions often became exaggerated: they shook their chests and hips in playful bursts, more caricature than expression. Men, on the other hand, would throw their arms wide open and turn their wrists and fingers awkwardly, as if reaching up to fix a lamp on the ceiling rather than surrendering to the music.