From Rain, A Rose

Tara Ghassemieh

 presents

From Rain, A Rose

از باران یک گل

 

Tara Ghassemieh

The Persian Swan

 

March 21, 2026 - 11AM PST

Music
Persian Garden

by
Maestro Shardad Rohani

 
Directed By: Tara Ghassemieh
Director of Photography & Editor: Leandro Glory Damasco Jr.

 

Exclusively for Farhang Performances

 

"From Rain, a Rose is a poetic dance film born from the enduring resilience of the Iranian people. For generations, Iranians have learned how to carry light through storm. Across decades of hardship, the spirit of our culture has never ceased to endure. In Iranian culture, the rose has long symbolized love, courage, and awakening. It reminds us that beauty is not the absence of struggle, for even the rose must live beside its thorn, yet still it rises, and the miracle of its bloom emerges from within.

Set against rain, wind, and sea, the film moves through the emotional space between exile and belonging. Though oceans separate the Iranian diaspora from those living within Iran, the connection of heart, memory, and spirit remains unbroken. This work is an offering carried across water, a gesture of love sent to our brothers and sisters in Iran. It is a reminder that their courage is seen, their voices are heard, and that millions stand with them united.

The rose moving through the storm becomes a symbol of unity, faith, and rebirth

As I reflected on the meaning of this work, one truth stayed with me.

Even when the rain falls heavy upon our shoulders and the storm darkens the sky, in the deepest chambers of our hearts a quiet seed of hope awakens. And from that storm, as it has for centuries, the rose of Iran will prevail, rise, and bloom again."

 — Tara Ghassemieh

 

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About Tara Ghassemieh

Tara Ghassemieh is an Iranian American principal dancer, choreographer, director, and the founding Artistic and Executive Director of INTUITV ARTSHIP, a boundary-breaking ballet company dedicated to contemporary narrative storytelling through classical ballet. Her work lives at the intersection of artistic excellence and cultural resistance, using ballet as a living language capable of carrying memory, truth, and political urgency.

At age sixteen, Ghassemieh moved to New York City to train at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of American Ballet Theatre, launching a professional career marked by artistic rigor and international recognition. Throughout her career, she has received multiple artist and choreography awards, reflecting both her technical mastery and her commitment to original, narrative-driven work.

Recognized as the first Iranian American principal dancer, Ghassemieh centers representation and authorship in her practice, creating original, full-length ballets that reclaim suppressed histories shaped by exile, repression, and resilience. Her critically acclaimed ballet The White Feather—which she wrote, produced, directed, choreographed, and performed—tells the true story of the disbanding of the Iranian National Ballet. The work toured nationally to sold-out audiences and culminated in a performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, transforming ballet into an act of remembrance and resistance.

Her subsequent ballet, Tchaikovsky: A Love Letter, reexamines classical history through a contemporary lens, exploring the composer’s inner life through letters, memory, and fractured time.

Beyond the stage, Ghassemieh mentors underground dancers inside Iran, where dance remains illegal, and is the Creative Director, Executive Producer, and lead subject of the feature documentary Exile of the Swans. Across stage, film, and education, her work asks how ballet can bear witness, tell the truth, and evoke freedom.

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