Tarab

Accompanied by the complex rhythms of the virtuoso percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, seven dancers embody millennia-old movements. These dances, largely unexplored and in some places forbidden, are part of the pre-Islamic West Asian cultural heritage. They have been subjected to multiple forms of Eurocolonial and Islamic translation, in the course of which women were either degraded from primary carriers to sexualized oriental entertainment dancers or banned from the practice altogether. 

The word 'tarab’ describes this moment of ecstasy, where body and music unite and open a gateway to enchanted sensuality. Tarab is the last part of a trilogy using dance, performance, video, sound and installation art. The trilogy (Under Cover, Force Majeur, Tarab) strives to expose the so-called notion of ‘Oriental Women’ as a projection of Western cultural bias, and seeks to restore a diverse image, a truly feminist vision of the complexity of gender identity in Islam.  

• عطش ATASH عطش , is a company based in Vienna around the work of Ulduz Ahmadzadeh (choreography, performance, artistic co- direction) and Till Jasper Krappmann (scenography, artistic co-direction). The company focusses on projects of diverse artistic aesthetics with a feminist and political emphasis. عطش ATASH عطش aims to expand the contemporary dance language with a Middle-Eastern dance vocabulary, breaking up the hegemony of Western dominated aesthetics and specifically addresses socio-political issues and cultural hierarchies.