"I'm eighty-seven-years old, and every morning when I wake up, for two hours or so, I practice ballet in my apartment. I tell everyone that being a dancer has two advantages: one is that you make a living, and the other is that you have fun doing it and it gives you life and you stay healthy.

There was a place in Tehran that was almost like a cabaret and was called Astoria. I went there every night, and I watched foreigners dance and learned from them very quickly. There was a group of about 15 Iranian couples who wanted to dance like the Westerners, and I took it upon myself to teach them, and before I knew it, with the word of mouth, I became known as Mr. Moradi, the dance instructor, and I taught my students how to do the rumba, the tango, and the waltz.

This was when I heard that a strong, tall Armenian man named Sarkis Janbazian, who had finished ballet school in Leningrad, had come to Iran and had opened a dance studio in Tehran. I immediately went to him and became his student, and I learned Russian folk dances from him. Once every year, we had performances, and we even danced for the Shah.

After this, I opened my own ballet school, and I had it for 17-18 years when the National Institute of Folk Dances of Iran hired me. Our dancers had to perform at Roudaki Hall in Tehran twice a month. They danced Iranian folk dances, and the Institute even hired a foreign choreographer, and we traveled to small towns and villages all over Iran and recorded the local music, and filmed the dances of the locals. Then we came back to Tehran, and the choreographer prepared the dances for the stage. Then they invited us to go to London, and we performed there every night for a whole month. After that, we were invited to perform in the United States.

Then the revolution happened, and they said that dancing was against the law, that singing was against the law, that music was against the law...What would be left? Nothing. I was always respected because I loved dancing for the sake of dancing." -Gholamreza (Nicolai) Moradi