Founders

Founders

Academy Beshkan Dance
About Them

Razieh Oghabian and Sharareh Ghahremani are co-founders of Beshkan Dance Academy which was developed in 2003 in Silicon Valley. Individually, they have been teaching dance for over 20 years and have been active in and helped develop many cultural organizations in the community for the past 20+ years. They originally met as undergraduate students at UC Davis. It was there that they had their first venture as a team. With the help of five other students, they created and co-founded a student organization at UC Davis called ISCAO (Iranian Student Cultural and Aesthetic Organization). ISCAO was created tointroduce the university’s student body to the rich and beautiful cultural heritage of Iran, despite an environment of consistently negative media attention. This student organization was built with such strong values at its core that it is still running after 22 years with multiple iterations of new members leading the efforts. Beshkan has been invited to perform at ISCAO events multiple times.

Razieh and Sharareh each completed their Bachelor’s of Science from UC Davis. They both have full time careers and each is married with two children. Sharareh is an ENT (ear, nose throat) physician’s assistant who graduated from Stanford University and is working at a successful and respected medical office in San Jose. Razieh currently works as a Program Manager for large and successful software company in Silicon Valley. Their passion and desire towards the Iranian culture gives them the drive to run Beshkan, in spite of their busy career and family schedules.

Beshkan has been involved in many cultural and artistic events through the United States; among them are the New York Norooz Parade, OC Mehregan Festival, Persian Cultural Club Norooz Celebration, San Jose Norooz & Mehregan Festival, Houston Norooz Festival, Noor Iranian Film Festival, and many student organization cultural events around the country.