TARAB
In Arab and Iranian culture, “tarab” happens when a body is gripped by the music, and physical sensation is enhanced. This heightened moment, when body and music unite, is a door to ecstasy and enchanted sensuality. In TARAB, the last part of a trilogy, Ulduz Ahmadzadeh focuses on unexplored and, in some places, forbidden movement material and odd rhythmic patterns of Pre-Islamic, Middle Eastern cultural heritage. Dance and music material that has undergone multiple forms of Eurocolonial and Islamic translations, in which women, from being the primary holders, got either reduced to sexualised oriental entertainer-dancers or forbidden from practising them all together. Accompanied by the complex rhythms of the virtuoso percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, seven dancers embody these millennia-old movement materials. TARAB is about imagining a possible dialogue between those dance worlds and the contemporary dance language without shying away from the colonial dynamics between the two.
is a choreographer, performer, researcher and the artistic co-director of ATASH عطش contemporary dance company, which she founded in 2012. Born in Tehran, she started dancing in a country in which it is still prohibited. In defiance of state censorship, she performed regularly with the company Harekat from 1999 until 2004. She was subsequently incarcerated. After her release, she started her own dance company, which continued to be highly critical of the political system and explicitly addresses socio-political issues and cultural hierarchies. Ahmadzadeh studied directing at the art university Soureh in Tehran, contemporary dance pedagogy at MUK in Vienna and Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Credits
Concept, choreography Ulduz Ahmadzadeh Concept, scenography Till Krappmann Composition, live music Mohammad Reza Mortazavi Dance, choreography Desi Bonato, Naline Ferraz, Flora Virag, Luca Major, Ofer Dayani, Axel Hampusson, Jassi Murad Light design Jan Wielander Production Julia Haas, Mascha Mölkner Scenography in collaboration with Alice Ursini Co-produced by ATASH عطش contemporary dance company and Tanzquartier Wien. With kind support from the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna, and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport
Tashweesh is funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts and Culture, Civil Service and Sport.
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