Aisan Hoss and Mehdi Parnia

Oyna Natural Foods

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Appears in
We Are La Cocina
We Are La Cocina

By Leticia Landa and Caleb Zigas

Published 2019

  • About
Joined La Cocina: March 2016

Written by Jessica Mataka, La Cocina staff since 2016

At age twelve, Aisan Hoss attended her first dance class. In a hot, crowded room, along with fifty other young dancers, she’d twist, inhale, reach, exhale, repeat. She emulated her dance teacher, Haideh Kishipour, mimicking her every move.

Weights and outdated exercise equipment lie dusty and unused along the walls. They were a disguise meant to mask the dance studio as a gym. In post-revolution Iran, dancing remains officially illegal. In spite of this technicality, people still dance.