Internationally renowned dancer,  répétiteur, choreographer, teacher, lecturer

Parisa was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She received her BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University, dancing the ballets of Agnes de Mille, Robert Battle, Lester Horton, Judith Jamison, Donald McKayle, & Martha Graham.  After attending American Dance Festival on a Tom Adams & Gayle Halperin scholarship, she debuted there a year later at ADF with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 2003.

In 2006 she was featured in Dance Magazine as a performer “On the Rise.” And appeared on the cover of the 2012 December issue, titled "Magical and Mercurial”, and she penned articles, Why I Dance, What Paul Taylor has Taught Me and Why It’s Important to Come Back From Injury on Your Own Terms.

Parisa has lectured at Oxford University for Dance Scholarship at Oxford in the United Kingdom and The College of William and Mary in Wiliamsburg, Virginia. She has re-staged Mr. Taylor’s work at William and Mary, at Rome’s Academia Nazionale Di Danza , and Newcastle College with Eliot Smith Dance. She has choreographed dances to benefit human rights organizations and for independent films.

Her extensive body of work as a Paul Taylor dancer earned her a New York Performing Arts award nomination (“The Bessie”). She has created and performed in principal and supporting roles in over 100 Taylor works and has worked with other notable choreographers, including Kyle Abraham, Bryan Arias, Doug Elkins, Margie Gillis, David Grenke, Larry Keigwin, Pam Tanowitz, Doug Varone, and Lila York to name a few. 

In 2019, Parisa took her final bow at Lincoln Center, after performing at Paul Taylor Dance Company for over sixteen years. Simultaneously she set up a vehicle for her own creative output, Parisa Khobdeh Dance. Her company has appeared at Grace Farms in New Canaan, Here Arts Center in NYC, and at the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson, Texas.

Parisa has returned to Dallas from London, United Kingdom to join the esteemed faculty of the Division of Dance at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts as a Visiting Assitant Professor of Practice and Artist-in-Residence where she will re-stage Paul Taylor’s “Esplanade” and be a collaborating artist for the Division of Theatre’s production of “Mr. Burns…a post-electric play”. Parisa has returned to the American Dance Festival this summer, as a Samuel H. Scripps scholar, and has been invited to serve on the Alumni advisory committee for the Board of Directors of ADF.

See the teaser to Scape, her video collaboration with various artists during the pandemic in London, São Paulo, NYC, Phoenix and San Francisco.

To make a statement, we must be unafraid to both honor and redefine our heritage. The sacred grounds of dancemaking are formed by an understanding of the modern paradox: we must know the rules, and we must fearlessly break them. This is the lifeblood of innovation.

 Much love,

PK