RAINBOW
Music theater performance - Performative immersive installation - Immersive Installation - Video Installation
2019
Based on The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar
Rainbow explores identity as a plural, evolving process rather than a fixed or singular condition. Like a rainbow—formed through the reflection and dispersion of light—identity emerges through a multitude of encounters, histories, and perspectives. While lived identity is inherently multiple, it is often reduced to simplified categories. Rainbow questions this tension between complexity and classification, inviting audiences to reconsider the richness and fluidity of human experience.
The work is inspired by The Conference of the Birds, the literary masterpiece by the Persian mystic poet Farid ud-Din Attar. In the story, thousands of birds embark on a journey in search of Simorgh, the mythical embodiment of truth. After enduring many trials, only thirty birds reach the end, where they discover that they themselves are the Si (thirty) morgh (birds). This revelation—that truth resides in collective multiplicity—forms the conceptual and poetic foundation of Rainbow.
Drawing from Attar’s text, Nazanin Fakoor creates a libretto that intertwines music theatre and immersive installation. The composition by Iranian composer Aftab Darvishi, written for the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, unfolds within a spatial and visual environment that reflects difference, interdependence, and transformation.
Fakoor transcends representation and engages the senses, by approaching colour as a medium of transformation and multiplicity and inviting the audience into an immersive space where light - a central material of her practice—becomes performative. Elusive and intangible, yet capable of shaping perception, it pulses, refracts, and dissolves in dialogue with the human voice and the spatial presence of the performers and the audience. It invites audiences into an experience of continuous becoming, where identity is perceived as layered, relational, and continuously shifting. Here, sound ignites colour, and colour - not only seen, but felt, heard, and lived as a dynamic expression of plurality - refracts into ever-expanding possibilities.
Formats
- Music theatre performance (45’)
- Performative immersive installation (45’)
- Immersive installation (exhibition format)
- Video installation (single- or multi-channel)
- Concert / orchestral adaptation, including collaboration with Brussels Philharmonic (Le Poème du feu, Scriabin and La Mer, Debussy), presented at Flagey and DE SINGEL, more...
Credits
Concept, directing, installation and adaptation: Nazanin Fakoor
Composition: Aftab Darvishi
Musical Direction: Ivan Yohan
Dramaturgy: Tobias Kokkelmans
Audio Spatialization: Karl Ancia
Assistant: Anne Gordon
Performed by: SWARA Vocal Ensemble
Marion Bauwens, soprano
Sarah Verhoeven, soprano
Anna Nuytten, mezzo-soprano
Imogen Streul, mezzo-soprano
Hendrik Mispelon, tenor
Benjamin Jago, tenor
Dody Soetanto, baritone
Andrés Soler Castaño, bass
Production: kunstencentrum nona
Co-production: C-TAKT, Lunalia / Festival van Vlaanderen Mechelen, Workspacebrussels
With the support of: The Flemish Government, The Flemish Community Commission, Sabam, Kunstencentrum BUDA and the Boghossian Fondation
Rainbow explores identity as a plural, evolving process rather than a fixed or singular condition. Like a rainbow—formed through the reflection and dispersion of light—identity emerges through a multitude of encounters, histories, and perspectives. While lived identity is inherently multiple, it is often reduced to simplified categories. Rainbow questions this tension between complexity and classification, inviting audiences to reconsider the richness and fluidity of human experience.
The work is inspired by The Conference of the Birds, the literary masterpiece by the Persian mystic poet Farid ud-Din Attar. In the story, thousands of birds embark on a journey in search of Simorgh, the mythical embodiment of truth. After enduring many trials, only thirty birds reach the end, where they discover that they themselves are the Si (thirty) morgh (birds). This revelation—that truth resides in collective multiplicity—forms the conceptual and poetic foundation of Rainbow.
Drawing from Attar’s text, Nazanin Fakoor creates a libretto that intertwines music theatre and immersive installation. The composition by Iranian composer Aftab Darvishi, written for the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, unfolds within a spatial and visual environment that reflects difference, interdependence, and transformation.
Fakoor transcends representation and engages the senses, by approaching colour as a medium of transformation and multiplicity and inviting the audience into an immersive space where light - a central material of her practice—becomes performative. Elusive and intangible, yet capable of shaping perception, it pulses, refracts, and dissolves in dialogue with the human voice and the spatial presence of the performers and the audience. It invites audiences into an experience of continuous becoming, where identity is perceived as layered, relational, and continuously shifting. Here, sound ignites colour, and colour - not only seen, but felt, heard, and lived as a dynamic expression of plurality - refracts into ever-expanding possibilities.
Formats
- Music theatre performance (45’)
- Performative immersive installation (45’)
- Immersive installation (exhibition format)
- Video installation (single- or multi-channel)
- Concert / orchestral adaptation, including collaboration with Brussels Philharmonic (Le Poème du feu, Scriabin and La Mer, Debussy), presented at Flagey and DE SINGEL, more...
Credits
Concept, directing, installation and adaptation: Nazanin Fakoor
Composition: Aftab Darvishi
Musical Direction: Ivan Yohan
Dramaturgy: Tobias Kokkelmans
Audio Spatialization: Karl Ancia
Assistant: Anne Gordon
Performed by: SWARA Vocal Ensemble
Marion Bauwens, soprano
Sarah Verhoeven, soprano
Anna Nuytten, mezzo-soprano
Imogen Streul, mezzo-soprano
Hendrik Mispelon, tenor
Benjamin Jago, tenor
Dody Soetanto, baritone
Andrés Soler Castaño, bass
Production: kunstencentrum nona
Co-production: C-TAKT, Lunalia / Festival van Vlaanderen Mechelen, Workspacebrussels
With the support of: The Flemish Government, The Flemish Community Commission, Sabam, Kunstencentrum BUDA and the Boghossian Fondation
|
|
|
Press & links
"For the concert Le Poème du feu, Nazanin Fakoor transforms her installation Rainbow into a light sculpture that floats above the orchestra. Slowly rotating mirror panels catch the light and cast it into the concert hall. Projected images break apart on the mirrors and drift through the space like scattered fragments. Together they form a kaleidoscope of light, colour, and movement, in dialogue with the music of Scriabin and Debussy."
Brussels Philharmonic: Nazanin Fakoor's installation 'Rainbow' in a symphonic performance, 12/2025
“In a special way, Rainbow combines a mystical poem about a mythical bird and the scientific, Newtonian discourse about the splendour of the rainbow into a contemporary reflection on identity. At the same time, Fakoor’s performative installation remains open to various interpretations by her audience. Just as we sit around it in an ellipse, which both disfigures and stabilises our perspective, Rainbow is strongly focused on a reflection on yourself, on your own perspective and view of the world.”
Pieter Verstraete: Rainbow: de mens als prisma, Recto:Verso 05/2019
“Mirrored surfaces hang together and rotate around their axes like a giant mobile. They are fragile mirrors. Full of dents and creases. They reflect the image of the artist and scenographer Nazanin Fakoor in strange color waves. Like a rainbow that keeps losing its form. Or like us perhaps: liquid under the armor of our skin.”
Annemarie Peeters: Nationale identiteit is een mythe, De Standaard 05/2019
“Intimate, dark and yet full of colour, breath, voices, bodies; everything is sound, everything is part of space, everything is choreography. Nazanin Fakoor played with Rainbow not one but several senses in a message full of hope. As it is said in the piece itself, "Everything here is outside of time, outside of measurements, so forget about the beginning, forget about the end.”
Klaas Chileans: Lunalia wordt licht - Rainbow (Nazanin Fakoor), Cutuurpakt 05/2019
“Nazanin Fakoor has created a highly sensory light installation that is enriched with live vocal soundscapes by the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, in a composition by Aftab Darvishi. Their music theatrical installation transports you in the mystical text of the twelfth-century Persian poet Attar and at the same time invites you to come to repentance in the stratification of yourself.”
Pieter Verstraete: Spiegels van de Ziel, Theaterkrant 05/2019
Martina Stella: How Many Different Things Can A Screen Be, Are Photonica - Texts on light in fine art 05/2023
Expo 'F.A.S.T.' aan de ULB: 'We belichten onzichtbare vrouwen in de kunst en wetenschap', BRUZZ 02/2022
Andreas Fleck: Interview about Rainbow, workspacebrussels 05/2019
"For the concert Le Poème du feu, Nazanin Fakoor transforms her installation Rainbow into a light sculpture that floats above the orchestra. Slowly rotating mirror panels catch the light and cast it into the concert hall. Projected images break apart on the mirrors and drift through the space like scattered fragments. Together they form a kaleidoscope of light, colour, and movement, in dialogue with the music of Scriabin and Debussy."
Brussels Philharmonic: Nazanin Fakoor's installation 'Rainbow' in a symphonic performance, 12/2025
“In a special way, Rainbow combines a mystical poem about a mythical bird and the scientific, Newtonian discourse about the splendour of the rainbow into a contemporary reflection on identity. At the same time, Fakoor’s performative installation remains open to various interpretations by her audience. Just as we sit around it in an ellipse, which both disfigures and stabilises our perspective, Rainbow is strongly focused on a reflection on yourself, on your own perspective and view of the world.”
Pieter Verstraete: Rainbow: de mens als prisma, Recto:Verso 05/2019
“Mirrored surfaces hang together and rotate around their axes like a giant mobile. They are fragile mirrors. Full of dents and creases. They reflect the image of the artist and scenographer Nazanin Fakoor in strange color waves. Like a rainbow that keeps losing its form. Or like us perhaps: liquid under the armor of our skin.”
Annemarie Peeters: Nationale identiteit is een mythe, De Standaard 05/2019
“Intimate, dark and yet full of colour, breath, voices, bodies; everything is sound, everything is part of space, everything is choreography. Nazanin Fakoor played with Rainbow not one but several senses in a message full of hope. As it is said in the piece itself, "Everything here is outside of time, outside of measurements, so forget about the beginning, forget about the end.”
Klaas Chileans: Lunalia wordt licht - Rainbow (Nazanin Fakoor), Cutuurpakt 05/2019
“Nazanin Fakoor has created a highly sensory light installation that is enriched with live vocal soundscapes by the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, in a composition by Aftab Darvishi. Their music theatrical installation transports you in the mystical text of the twelfth-century Persian poet Attar and at the same time invites you to come to repentance in the stratification of yourself.”
Pieter Verstraete: Spiegels van de Ziel, Theaterkrant 05/2019
Martina Stella: How Many Different Things Can A Screen Be, Are Photonica - Texts on light in fine art 05/2023
Expo 'F.A.S.T.' aan de ULB: 'We belichten onzichtbare vrouwen in de kunst en wetenschap', BRUZZ 02/2022
Andreas Fleck: Interview about Rainbow, workspacebrussels 05/2019