Performance art, dance, theater, collaboration.
I have spent my life imagining other worlds. Rooted in folklore, I blur the boundaries between mythology and the deeply human, shaping movement, sound, and story into living dreams.
I am drawn to vulnerability and emotional risk, creating in the spaces where beauty and discomfort coexist.
There is often darkness. I hope to laugh in it.
Djahari is a choreographer, director, and interdisciplinary storyteller. She builds performance worlds shaped by folklore and ritual.
In close collaboration with musicians, her work weaves movement, text, and visual elements into cohesive, story-driven landscapes where the boundaries between dream, memory, and myth overlap. These works unfold as guided experiences—drawing audiences into intimate, mythic spaces where beauty and danger meet.
Trained in Persian Ballet and contemporary dance, she was a principal dancer with Pars National Ballet for over a decade under the direction of Abdollah Nazemi. She also trained at Will Geer Theater’s Academy of the Classics and holds a BA in Theater Arts from UCLA.
In 1999, she founded Desert Sin, a Middle Eastern dance-theater company blending narrative, social commentary, and theatrical spectacle. Her work has been presented in Los Angeles and New York at venues including the Ivar Theatre, Zipper Factory Theater, Dixon Place, Galapagos, Le Poisson Rouge, and House of Yes. Djahari's original productions include Cloud Cuckooland, The Ballad Tree, Twitchers, Winter in the Woods, Sita’s Fire, and Musée des Femmes. In 2020, she co-founded the artist organization Gloaming Project with long time music collaborator David Kamm.
Living in the Western Catskills, she performs, teaches, and develops new work through an ongoing practice grounded in emotional precision, collaboration, and the spaces between.