At 16, she was already a recognised amateur gymnast, and around that time, she passed the audition to join the newly created Azerbaijan State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble.

[3] A major turning point of her career came later in the 1940s when Niyazi agreed to musically accompany Dilbazi's performance of the Turaji folk dance at a concert attended by Azerbaijan's ruling Stalinist elite, including the republic's Communist Party leader Mir Jafar Baghirov.

[4] As a balletmaster, she staged folk dances, the most famous ones being (in addition to Turaji) Innabi, Tarakama, Mirzai and Naz Elama.

In the following decades, she was the choreographer for a number of Azerbaijani musicals, including the 1956 film version of If Not That One, Then This One, where Dilbazi herself featured performing a dance in one of the scenes.

Amirov proposed to her, and the two were due to get married but Dilbazi decided to break off their engagement, having been nurturing feelings for Jovdat Hajiyev, another young composer and her artistic director at the time.