Materials: Acrylic and Resin

Tarab

Tarab describes the emotional effect of oriental music on performers and the audience. This feeling formed the main inspiration for Siba Sahabi’s work. After designing a dance costume, she then captured four different forms of the costume in motion and transformed them into abstract sculptures.

East and West have impacted each other greatly regarding the development of oriental dance costumes. For instance, the couturier Poiret invented the famous harem pants in France in 1913. The Egyptian dancer Badia Mansabny introduced the stereotypical belly-dancing costume (bikini top combined with a long open skirt) in the 1930’s in Cairo, taking her inspiration from Hollywood films and European cabaret.

For her project Tarab, Siba designed a dance costume adapted from the traditional Moroccan dress, known as a robe magique or magic robe. The long, traditional, sleeveless dress consists of two layers – in this way, a woman can wear the top layer in different ways. Based on this dress, the contemporary choreographer Iván Pérez developed a dance for the oriental dancer Sara Toscano. Machinefabriek composed a song especially for the dance. Four moments of this choreography were then photographed and the still forms were interpreted into sculptures using 3D modelling. The result is four blue translucent sculptures that evoke movement. Each sculpture measures up to 70cm high, and is composed of up to 250 discs laser-cut from 3 mm-thick acrylic, joined with coloured resin.

Limited edition of: 2 AP + 1 unique set of 4 sculpures plus video

The short film 'Qaina' is dedicated to the historical female dancers who were known as Qainas.

They worked as highly-educated slaves in the courts of the Ottoman Empire and played an important role in developing oriental dance throughout the centuries.


This project is is supported by Het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.