Just Let The Wind Untie My Perfumed Hair... or Who Is Tahirih?

Delia Olam’s rich voice oozes a call for equality. Her fluttering veil casts a haunting shadow over the thin sheet that separates her from the audience as we are invited to remember a world so restricted that to see a woman’s face is a crime punishable by death. This is the story of Tahirih, the 19th-century Persian poet and first Islamist suffragette.

Perhaps this world is not so tricky to imagine, as it is still illegal for a woman to be seen in public in Iran without wearing a headscarf. By depicting a patchwork of characters surrounding Tahirih, Olam attempts to depict the intensity of the inequality. We see Tahirih’s father, servant and executioner, and in them we see the fear Tahirih’s boldness caused, as well as bursts of the hope it fuelled. Olam changes headwear to present each persona but there is something stilted in the presentation of each one, and the beauty of this piece really lies with the music that divides each scene.

Singing Tahirih’s poetry to her own composition Olam orchestrates her song with cello and Appalachian dulcimer. Her silken voice sooths as the music rises and falls, flowing through her vocal range as smoothly as the soft veil that falls around her. It holds the mystery, beauty and suggested power of Tahirih’s presence.

The piece lacks cohesion as a whole. While the character sketches serve simply to contextualise rather than add any sense of drama, Olam’s compelling voice and enthralling composition enchant.