ASCENDANCE Film to Premiere at SoCal Ballet Scene's 2026 Ballet Festival

Sanaz K. Soltani, who co-wrote and co-produced The White Feather, a Persian Ballet from the Irvine Barclay Theatre to the Kennedy Center, returns to the Barclay this Saturday with her first film. Ascendance, a unity within screens at 7:00 pm on September 12 in the first act of SoCal Ballet Scene's 2026 Ballet Festival.

The film runs eight minutes and contains no dialogue. A woman travels into her own interior and comes face to face with the divided parts of herself, the intellect, the body, the inner child and the higher self, each danced by a different dancer and set against an element. The higher self moves in water. The intellect burns as fire. The body is air. The inner child is earth. A spiritual guide walks her from one encounter to the next, neither rescuing her nor explaining, only insisting that she look.

"If I wanted to describe the film, I would say it is traveling inside," said Soltani, credited as libretto, producer and co-director. "It is taking a journey inside yourself and getting to know yourself. It is about healing and transcending. Ascending."

The four parts are danced by Kristin Hakala, a former principal dancer with Ballet West who came out of retirement for the role at Soltani's asking, as the higher self; Natalie Palmgren as the body; Tara Mohtashami, captain of the UCLA dance team, as the intellect; and Ayla Mohtashami as the inner child. David Prottas, who spent ten years with New York City Ballet and was in the original cast of the Broadway revival of Carousel, dances the spiritual guide.

Soltani did not want the higher self danced by a twenty-year-old. She wanted a woman who had lived a life. Hakala, who began her professional career at sixteen and danced leading roles across the classical and contemporary repertoire, agreed to return for the film. Palmgren holds dual BFA degrees in Dance Performance and Dance Choreography from UC Irvine and has performed with companies across California, most recently in Echoes of Our Ancestors at the Greek Theatre. Tara Mohtashami trained at West Coast School of the Arts and is a third-year psychobiology major at UCLA. Ayla Mohtashami, fourteen, has competed as a soloist since she was two and a half and appeared in The White Feather.

Choreography and co-direction are by Sharon Savoy, a Balanchine-trained ballet dancer who became a three-time Professional World Champion in Theatre Arts Ballroom, a four-time Blackpool Exhibition Dance Champion and a seven-time U.S. Open Cabaret Champion, and who has performed from the Royal Albert Hall to the Kennedy Center. She is the author of Ballroom! Obsession and Passion Inside the World of Competitive Dance and is developing the ballroom dance musical FloorPlay.

Ascendance was shot in two places. The underwater sequences were filmed in the pool of photographer Mallory Morrison, known for her images of dancers beneath the surface. The rest was shot in a hazed black-box studio at Two Seas Media in Southern California. The score is Massenet's Thaïs: Méditation.

Soltani came to film through the stage. She co-wrote and co-produced The White Feather, a Persian Ballet, made with co-artistic directors Tara Ghassemieh and Vítor Luiz, which traces Iran's story through the eyes of a child, from the silencing of its national ballet to a revolution led by women. The production sold out every performance, from the Irvine Barclay Theatre and The Broad Stage to San Francisco's Herbst Theatre and the Kennedy Center, where Empress Farah Pahlavi flew in from Paris to attend, before reaching the New York stage. It won a Viewers' Choice Award and was covered by The New York Times.

She is managing partner of the law firm Aleshire & Wynder, has argued before the California Supreme Court and has more than ten published opinions. The Los Angeles Business Journal named her one of the Women of Influence in Los Angeles County. She is a trustee of Southern California Ballet Scene and previously served on the board of the Laguna Dance Festival.

The festival programme also features highlights from Swan Lake, contemporary works by Anaheim Ballet, The Realm Company and Luminario Ballet, aerial performers and soprano Diana Farrell.