Theater Project “TAN” — Turnhalle (October 2017)
TAN is a devised theatre project created for the unique acoustics and architecture of the Turnhalle (a former gymnasium). The piece explores the body as instrument—breath, pulse, and collective rhythm—merging physical theatre with live vocals and percussive soundscapes. Chalk lines, benches, and the gym’s raw geometry become the scenography: performers map paths across the floor, form transient choruses, and fracture into solos that return to ensemble unison. The dramaturgy moves from intimate listening (heartbeat, whisper, footfall) to a communal crescendo, inviting the audience to inhabit the thresholds between rehearsal and ritual, play and precision.
Musically, TAN alternates between minimalist motifs and polyphonic laments; movement language draws on everyday gestures amplified into pattern and canon. Lighting is spare and architectural, carving zones of proximity and distance. The result is a lean, kinetic performance that feels both site-specific and timeless—an investigation of how bodies organize themselves into meaning when space and sound are treated as equal partners.
Baharak’s Performance
As a vocalist–performer, Baharak Abdolifard serves as the production’s aural anchor. Her live vocal line shifts between wordless vocalise and fragmentary text; breath, consonant pulses, and sustained tones set the cadence for movement phrases and punctuate spatial patterns. She actively “tunes” to the Turnhalle’s natural reverberation—placing tones in different zones of the room so that the space itself becomes part of the score. A mid-piece solo compresses the work’s themes—discipline, play, and collective pulse—into an intimate study of control and release, before her voice folds back into ensemble textures in call-and-response. Throughout, Abdolifard’s presence keeps the focus on the simplest instrument on stage: the human voice.
Director: Nima Nazarinia