Draft:Tamur Tohver

Tamur Tohver (born May 9, 1969.. ) is a theatre director, an actor, a performing art practitioner and a researcher, who has accumulated various academic, psychological and performing art experiences. He is the founder of the independent performing art platform Polygon, which amalgamates professional Polygon Theatre and educational Polygon Theatre School. In addition, in 2021 he established the self-development centre Tohver Studio. He is the author of Zero Zone Praxis (2020), a self-cultivation praxis that helps to tackle ego-based conflicts during the rehearsal period and thereby avoid stage fright manifestations in the actor-director dyad. Tamur Tohver is also a personal development coach and yogi. Tohver shares his activities in all fields between United Kingdom, India, United States and Estonia.

Education
Tamur Tohver has graduated as a director and actor from Tallinn University (BA,1991) and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (MA, 2003). In 2019-2024, PhD researcher in Performing Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, the United Kingdom. In 2021-2022, he enriched himself with profound American theatre experience as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar.

Career
Tamur Tohver has directed over eighty productions for theatre, TV and radio with high-level professionals, students and community performers. He has been a director for several large multimedia projects and multicultural theatre productions both in the open air and the Tallinn City Hall. He has participated in various international audio and video festivals, worked for EBU, has directed radio plays in Estonian Public Broadcasting ERR, Latvijas Radio and YLE (Finland Public Broadcasting). Tamur Tohver has been the guest director in Auroville Theatre Group and Ranga Shankara (India), Tallinn City Hall, Endla Theatre, Estonian Theatre for Young Audiences, Estonian Drama Theatre etc. Tohver has performed in television, radio theatre and films as a professional actor since 1983, from age thirteen. He is also a creative writer – there are several articles and publications, theatre and radio dramas, and translations from other authors. He is writing articles for academic journals and columns for different cultural portals.

Tamur Tohver was a member of the performing arts institutions financing policy development expert group in 2017 (Ministry of Culture of Estonia). Tamur is a member of the Estonian Author's Society, Estonian Theatre Union and Estonian Fire Artist Union. He has been Vice-Chairman of the Estonian Director's Union from 2017 to 2019 and a Board member from 2017 to 2021. Tohver is also Trustee at Open Space Performing Arts Centre "Vaba Lava" since 2020

Zero Zone Praxis
Zero Zone offers a methodological approach to stage fright for the director, guiding them to enable actors to improve their performance and explains the dynamics of performing flow and detachment through a daily praxis in which the director will consciously take on the role of a coach.

This preventive idiosyncratic self-cultivation praxis fuses Stanislavskian acting and directing craft with the perceptual yogic techniques and coaching facilitating principles. This provides new effective techniques, including changes in attitude toward the craft. More details on the Zero Zone Praxis webpage.

Experiences
Tamur Tohver started his career in 1991 in the Estonian Public Broadcasting, Radio Theatre as the Drama Director and was promoted in 1998 to the Executive Producer post, where he contributed a lot to the development of Estonian recorded theatre art. Alongside this, he shared his knowledge about acting, directing, script development and media commercials as a teacher at Tallinn University and Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre until 2006. International experience was gathered from different sources: from EBU (Radio Drama Project Group, expert ), Exitfilm (production manager), stage and radio drama directing abroad. Tamur has extensive experience in leading people but also in enhancing their development. He has held multiple times leadership of national and international teams and has coached leading executives.

Awards
Tohver has received several scholarships from the Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture. and Estonian Directors' and Dramaturgs' Union over the years: 2003-2021. Also, he has received the annual award of the Estonian Radio for 1997, 2002 and 2003. He has been nominated three times at Prix Europa (Berlin, Germany) (TOP 10 in 1997), Madis Kõiv radio drama "Haug" (The Pike); in 1999 Ervin Õunapuu radio drama "Õhtueine Emmauses" (The Supper at Emmaus) and in 2019 Priit Põldma radio drama "Must luik: üks lugu seitsmele häälele, Roland Schimmelpfennigi laadis" (The Black Swan) at Prix Europa (Berlin) as mentioned on Estonian national radio ERR History page. In Tamur Tohver 2019 received a full award from Archimedes Foundation for research in Performing Arts and in 2021 received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship from the US Congress.

Articles and publications
Tamur Tohver has published mainly on performing arts subjects, however, he also addresses social development topics. The titles include Acoustic Sing in Audio Languages , (published in Finnish and in Estonian languages), several articles about scriptwriting and performing arts in Theatre.Music.Cinema. The full book on audio semiotics and directing was published in 2003, under the title Silent Listening Is Easier (Publishing Centre / ER, Tln. 2003). From the social side, one can find An April Thesis of Mindless (Sirp, 2013 ), several writings on ERR Culture, How to recognize a miracle? (Edasi, 2018 ) and the latest Obstacle is a solution (Edasi, 2019 ). The academic articles about performing in a higher state of consciousness could be found in ORCID, in Stansilavski Studies and Sirp.

Original plays
Tamur wrote his first radio drama in 1995, called Unplugged. The original scripts include also radio drama Supper at Emmaus (1999 with E. Õunapuu) and radio opera The Opposite Coast (based on A. Kallas "The Priest of Reigi")  His latest dramas were All Normal People (2017, with co-authors P. Jaaks and A.Vallik) and Fear Walkers (2017, textless).

Translations of plays
Tamur Tohver has been translated several plays form English, Finnish and Russian languages, including Jessikan penttu by L. Klemola (from Finnish language) and Korjaamo by M. Myllyaho (from Finnish language)

Roles in TV, theatre, radio and film
Tamur Tohver's professional acting career started at the age of thirteen, in 1983 New fellow (by E. Akopov - TV Drama, David Kaloshyan (the main) in Estonia Television. Five years later, in 1988, he made his debut in Radio Drama Hotlines (by Vallnerova - Radio Drama, Jurjai (the main) in ERR Radiotheatre. Starting from 1995 these were followed by several TV, radio and film characters, including Comedy series La Dolce Vita in Radio and TV, full movie All My Lenins (by Volmer/Kall - also as 2nd Unit Director, Faama Film / Lenfilm). Tamur Tohver has a successful career in TV also later, between 2000-2021 in different TV serials The Revenge Bureau (BEC), Secrets, Sledge Dogs, Last cop etc. In 2013, he steps first time on stage at his own company as Jekku- a psychotherapist, who is a dog (Jessika's Puppy by L. Klemola - Jekku, Polygon Theatre ) and. Since then, Tamur Tohver has committed mostly to directing. However, he still creates remarkable characters again, on top of which is a monologue by Gogol (2016 A Blog of A Madman by K. Shahmardan / Nikolai Gogol - main, Polygon Theatre). In 2021, he appears again in The Revenge Bureau. See the whole listing on the Polygon Theatre Company page].

Stage direction
Tamur Tohver's first direction as a radio drama was Helga Nõu Escapers, 1991. In 1995, Tamur Tohver directed his first show for the professional stage: Train on Roof by A. Alavainu (Pärnu Town Theatre Endla). In 2002-2005, when being the artistic director of independent T-Theatre, he established more special personal stagecraft in terms of his own style. Even this has developed over years to become more physical and sophisticated, Tamur is still committed to communication  'from person to person instead of from actor to audience'. His portfolio includes many classical and contemporary absurdists from Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and Minoru Betsuyaku to Marius von Mayenburg and Roland Schimmelpfennig. In 2008, The Polygon Theatre Company was established by opening Frozen images by Kristian Smeds and on the next year, Polygon Theatre presented already on the international performing arts festival, the Baltic Circle Festival with Oxygen by Ivan Vyrypaev (Polygon Theatre). He has been produced in extensive scale of styles, from classical comedies (Garage  by M. Myllyaho (Polygon and Old Baskin's Theatre) to contemporary physical theatre. In his craft-cultivation, current development shows embracing the preference of kind-of-devised materials, cultivated from ensemble's ideas. The starting year of this could be 2017 when appeared The Bald Soprano based on Eugène Ionesco (Polygon Theatre School), Perplex by Marius von Mayenburg (Polygon Theatre), All Normal People (KNI) by A. Vallik / P. Jaaks / T. Tohver (Polygon Theatre and Polygon Theatre School) and Fear Walkers by Friedebert Tuglas / Tamur Tohver (Auroville Theatre Group and Polygon Theatre, Bharat Nivas, Auroville ). This appears also in his current creation for the radio drama (2019: Black Swan  by P. Põldma (ERR Radiotheatre)). The freshest development in the same line is Singing Green by Karl Koppelmaa / Tamur Tohver (Polygon Theatre, 2020). See the whole listing on the Polygon Theatre Company page]. The furthest stage for him has been now Bharat Nivas in Auroville.