Music and Time Annotation << Back Persian Dance: Obstacle Race Through Centuries A.P. Matusevich Various stages of evolution of dancing art in Iran – since the most ancient prehistoric times are considered up to our time. Seven historical periods in development of the Persian dance are allocated, driving forces of development of dance in each of them, and also the reason of decline of the dancing art which was periodically taking place throughout multithousand-year history of the Iranian art are analysed. Pahlavi era (20th century) is most in detail considered for which, along with development of folklore tradition, introduction in Iran professional ballet theater was characteristic. Keywords: ballet, national (folklore) dance, dance history, Persian choreographic tradition. Contacts: E-mail: almatus@mail.ru Pp. 33-37.