DBM report

“A Brief Account of the Contemporary Dance in Turkey”
Aylin Kalem, June 2007

Contemporary Dance Scene entered into a very dynamic period, rapidly growing from 2000 onwards, with the emergence of a young contemporary dance community consisting of a diversity of dance people, not just dancers, which included the two generations and younger ones. One of the ways of generating such a community was simple: a mailing group devoted exclusively to the contemporary dance field was created. This new form of communication made it possible for dancers to be visible first among themselves, and it also functioned as a source of motivation to organize their structure and identity, as a mode of circulating knowledge, a space for exchanging ideas and occasionally as a forum for debate. This process, allowed dance people to see the importance of a network, and helped to build a kind of solidarity among dance people, to get into the practice of taking action as one body against common problems.

The first main problems were the lack of rehearsal and performance spaces, of financial support, of management and promotional skills, and of a cultural policy in the country, thus, unable to access an audience in general. However, these poor conditions gave birth to other dynamics, an awareness among the dance community, and of the necessity of taking the responsibility and action not only in artistic creation, but also in organization, networking, engaging in civil initiatives by contacting cultural centres, academic units, foreign cultural institutes, municipalities, etc… In this way, the dance community learned to work as a big unit, a big family.

After 2000, more and more dance people began circulating internationally. A number of young dancers have gone abroad for training, teaching, dancing, creating, and engaging in collaborative projects. And upon their return, they opened channels for other dancers to expand in similar ways.

And now, with Istanbul as the imminent European Cultural Capital in 2010, there really is a movement among the Istanbul dance people engaged in organizational and networking activities, and there is also a growing interest among international networks regarding contemporary forms of art in Istanbul.

However, one can say that this movement is more about improving the working and promotional conditions of the dance field in general. In other words, generally speaking, it is not an artistic movement, but rather a civil movement, to develop the field. So, we cannot really talk about specific artistic tendencies that are being built up, except perhaps in the work of a couple of choreographers like Aydın Teker and Taldans (Mustafa Kaplan & Filiz Sızanlı). It is more of a research in building strategies to keep sustainability, to become more visible and to exist on the international level.

One of the factors that have given momentum to the younger generation of contemporary dance has been offered by IKSV. The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts has recently started to include young and new dance productions to the international programme of their Theatre Festival, and have contributed to their international diffusion by presenting the works of some young choreographers at its organizations in foreign countries.

ÇGSG -Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative- met for the first time in 2005 under the facilitation of Istanbul’s Bilgi University Management of Performing Arts programme, and then has continued to meet regularly in order to define the common problems, to take civil action through the engagement of local governmental institutions, and has lately organized a festival on the Asian side of Istanbul, where there is really very little going on in terms of contemporary artistic activity.

Garajistanbul, has very recently been founded to respond to the need of a performance venue, and dedicated its programme to dance and performance two days a week. Young choreographers found the opportunity to present their own works and to engage in collaborative works. There were, of course, other theatre venues before, but Garajistanbul started out as a contemporary dance/performance venue from the beginning with a new and adaptable setting, and has gained an identity as a performance space around which the contemporary dance community has at long last found a place to meet and exchange ideas.

On the other hand, there is a very small circle within the audience whose members are people who also work in the field of dance or are dance amateurs. It will still take a while to reach a more general audience. This is mostly due to the relative lack of a dance criticism in particular, and a tradition of good criticism on the arts in general. There is still no journal or magazine exclusively devoted to critical writings of contemporary dance. There is one dance magazine dedicated to popular dance in general, and there are good theatre magazines occasionally sparing some pages for reflective writings on dance, and very few examples in the newspapers. So, it can be said that there is no dance culture, around which reflection on dance is being fostered among intellectuals and dance followers.

The Growth of Dance in Turkey
Contemporary dance in Turkey seems to have originated primarily and historically in the works of the ballet dancers from the end of the 1960’s onwards. Considering the history of Ballet in Turkey, this movement deviating from classical ballet towards Modern and Contemporary Dance began shortly after the establishment of the State Ballet in Turkey.

Ballet in Turkey does not have a long history and it goes in parallel with the history of the Republic, founded in 1923. The first account of ballet dates back to 1921 when L. Krassa Arzumanova’s arrived in Turkey, after fleeing from the regime in Russia; a white Russian, trained at the Ballet School of St Petersburg. She was invited to Ankara in 1929 by Atatürk to set the grounds for classical ballet and thus, she was the first ballet teacher in Turkey. Her students gave their first performance in 1931 in Casa d’Italia. On the other hand, the institutional establishment of ballet in Turkey was established by Dame Ninette de Valois in 1948, under the name of Yeşilköy Ballet School in Istanbul. This school moved to Ankara in 1950, forming the Ballet Division of the Ankara State Conservatory. Since that time, there has been a very fast development for Ballet in Turkey with a growing amount of ballet dancers and choreographers in the State Conservatories, public houses and private schools.

However, the institutionalization of Modern or Contemporary Dance in Turkey is going through a much harder period compared to Ballet, and has not yet reached a satisfactory level. This situation seems to be strongly due to the lack of a recognizable cultural policy of the Ministry of Culture in general and the absence of a contemporary performing arts policy in particular. This situation has of course, many advantages for the flourishing of a rather independent form in artistic terms besides undeniably poor conditions for contemporary dancers. These disadvantageous conditions and common problems are one of the reasons for contemporary dancers and performance artists in Turkey to join together, and work in collaboration, producing through solidarity. So, there has been quite a movement in the last five years within an independent contemporary dance circle, composed of a variety of dance/performance people who come from different backgrounds in terms of dance training.

The first generation of Modern Dance in Turkey was of course quite homogeneous in terms of the dancers’ origins. It mainly consisted of some ballet dancers of the Ankara State Conservatory and Opera. Some of these dancers went abroad for Modern and Contemporary Dance training, and upon their return, started the movement towards contemporary dance by contributing in different ways such as creating modern pieces within the State Ballet, setting up their own companies, teaching Modern Dance techniques, staging their own pieces in various places and occasions, establishing their own private dance schools, organizing Modern and Contemporary dance workshops, teaching theoretical and practical courses in various University departments outside dance, writing critical articles on dance, and setting up Modern Dance departments as a division at the Conservatory and also as a University department. These people form the first generation of Modern and Contemporary dance dating back to late Sixties.

First Generation Choreographers
Sait Sökmen (1942), trained in the Ankara State Conservatory and danced for the State Ballet, he spent a couple of years studying in the London Contemporary Dance School, and later staged the first Modern piece called Çark (The Wheel) to Ravel’s music, in 1968. He is considered to be the first Turkish choreographer. He then went to New York to work with Georges Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Alvin Ailey and upon his return, he choreographed his other modern piece Kurban (The Sacrifice) with no music, in 1975-76, and then Konçerto (Concerto) to Bach’s music in 1980-81. As Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon puts forth in one of his articles “Sait Sokmen has done extensive research into various dance techniques, classical and modern. He believes in striving for a synthesis of all forms, steps and positions of classical ballet and modern dance, and claims to be an avid disciple of the techniques of Martha Graham and Alwin Nikolais.”

Similarly, there were other trained ballet dancers who went abroad to work on Modern dance techniques and created their own pieces upon their return, like Geyvan McMillen, Duygu Aykal, Şebnem Aksan, Aydın Teker, Dilek Evgin, Beyhan Murphy, Zeynep Tanbay and others. These choreographers trained in various centres and with the dance masters of the world such as the London Contemporary Dance School, in New York with Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and in Germany with Kurt Joos, et al in the Seventies. Thus, they were able to follow what was going on in those years, in the eminent dance centres of the world and to learn the Modern dance techniques of that era. They were important figures in transmitting their experience and knowledge to other dancers, and introduced the notion of creating pieces with the contribution of the dancers, a contemporary mode of creation.

In the beginning of the Seventies, with the international festivals organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, beginning in 1972, the audience was introduced to some modern dance pieces from foreign companies, as well as music. Throughout the years, the performances of Merce Cunningham, Alvin Nikolais, Alvin Ailey, New York Harkness Ballet, Carolyn Carlson, Molissa Fenley, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Ballet Rambert, Jiri Kylian have been presented as well as many other examples of more contemporary work with the inauguration of the International Istanbul Theatre Festival, like Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Wim Vandekeybus, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jan Fabre, etc. This inspired new and fresh ideas for dancers and choreographers, and motivated the younger generation to enter the field of dance.

There were only a few dance companies in the Seventies, such as Geyvan McMillen Modern Dance Theatre, consisting mainly of the State Ballet dancers and presenting new creations in the styles of contemporary ballet, dance theatre and modern dance. Another company which still continues to produce began performing in 1972, under the name of Contemporary Ballet Company run by Cem Ertekin. The dancers of this company are mainly the former students of the Istanbul University State Conservatory Ballet Department, where Cem Ertekin also teaches, so the style of the works is rather neo-classical, with a strong ballet technique.

In the Eighties, the first generation of choreographers continued to create modern dance and modern ballet productions in the State Ballet like Güloya Aruoba, Oytun Turfanda, Aysun Aslan, Selçuk Borak, Nasuh Barın and Beyhan Murphy. Each of these choreographers worked in different styles, from using folkloric motifs in search of a local modern creation to modern dance and dance theatre, from contemporary ballet to neo-classical ballet… This movement still continues with choreographers of the State Ballet like Nil Berkan, Sibel Kasapoğlu, Erdal Uğurlu, Uğur Seyrek, Binnaz Aydan, etc…

Türkuaz Modern Dance Company (1989-1994) inaugurated by Aysun Aslan and İzzet Öz was very important in creating a younger dance audience. It presented dynamic, colourful, avant-garde, Post-modern style works of various choreographers like Aydın Teker, Geyvan McMillen, Dilek Evgin, Selçuk Borak and Aysun Aslan. New works were created within Türkuaz as well as some works that have already been presented, like that of Duygu Aykal’s İnsancık. The dancers were from the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. The work, however, was too much for them. The company resisted to the hard conditions for only five years and then had to stop due to the lack of financial support.

The Formation of the Second Generation – An Interdisciplinary Approach
Moving on toward the Nineties, there was a development quite foreign which in fact contributes a lot to today’s independent Contemporary Dance scene. A second generation was being trained from the mid-Eighties onwards by the older generation, among young followers of dance and university students coming from other disciplines. So, the formation of the second generation was completely different than that of the first one, and it expanded in a non-institutional way.

One of the occasions for modern dance workshops was created by Geyvan McMillen in the Yıldız Technical University in Maslak. It was a group of multi-disciplinary university students who learned movement techniques in these workshops and then formed a group of movement research in the dance club of Boğaziçi University. This group later formed Yeşil Üzümler (Green Grapes) Performance Group and was the source for independent dancers, choreographers and performers later who started to create their own work in an interdisciplinary fashion. Zeynep Günsür (Movement Atelier), Emre Koyuncuoğlu (Emre Koyuncuoğlu Project), Mustafa Kaplan (Taldans, Çatı Dance Association), Ziya Azazi (dancer and choreographer), Deniz Boro (Çatdal – Contemporary Turkish Dance Lab) were the ones who would later form other people around their works.

TAL (Theatre Research Lab) was another location to bring forth independent performers and choreographers. It was a creation of Beklan and Ayla Algan, two eminent theatre people who formed this lab within the Municipal Theatre to explore the dynamics of energy in movement. Mustafa Kaplan made an enormous amount of research that founded the basis of his creative work. He also continued to transmit his own research to form other dancers who would later create their own choreographic works; he is an important figure in the creation of an independent contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Mustafa Kaplan now works with Filiz Sızanlı, they create together under the name of Taldans, whose works are the most exposed, especially within Europe.

Şebnem Aksan contributed to the development of contemporary dancers by organizing workshops, inviting movement researchers and choreographers from abroad, and gathering a variety of people from different backgrounds. These workshops were important occasions to learn contemporary techniques and improvisation works, and an exercise for making choreographies.

ISM (Istanbul Art Centre) was another important location in the creation of independent dancers coming from various other disciplines. Christine Brodbeck and Mustafa Kaplan led regular classes and workshops in a tiny studio where many dancers were formed.

Aydın Teker, as the influential figure for contemporary dancers today, started to realize her site specific works in the beginning of the Nineties. These works stand very much between contemporary dance and performance. She started working project-based, with some of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet dancers and later with independent dancers. These dancers started to move in another way than their training. They developed a different style while working with Aydın Teker who does fundamental research in movement and develops a different technique in each of her projects. Her Aulos series were quite avant-garde site specific works, using some interesting and powerful spots in Istanbul. These sites differed from the study hall of the Mimar Sinan University to a section of Yıldız Palace and its garden, from a junkyard in Sultanahmet area to the Byzantine cistern, from the warehouse in Antwerp to a playground under the Brooklyn Bridge. She created other performance pieces in a variety of sites. She included dancers from various backgrounds, and each project provided a unique experience and particular movement training for these dancers throughout the creation process. This is mostly due to the choreographer’s choice of setting a challenge, and mostly a bodily challenge and to work on it in a minute detail until a weird movement technique comes out of it. Thus, in the Nineties, Aydın Teker was a very effective figure in the contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Many dancers working with her went on to build their own independent work.

The Beginning of the First Professional Contemporary Dance Education at the Conservatory
1992 is an important date for today’s contemporary dance, as Şebnem Aksan founded the Modern Dance Department at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory, which forms dancers in contemporary techniques with tremendous emphasis on the Anatomy. The students also find occasions to create their own projects with the support of interdisciplinary and theoretical work as well as their courses on physical training and techniques of composition and improvisation. The department now offers Masters and PhD programmes and has hosted many short-term trainers from abroad, forming over the course of time its teaching staff from its own core. Tuğçe Ulugün Tuna was the very first and most contributing student of this department. She started teaching while also continuing her higher studies. She danced in Aydın Teker’s many pieces and thus, built upon her choreographic talents by working very closely with her.

1992 was also the founding year of MDT (Modern Dance Company) within the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. It is the first institutional Modern Dance Company in Turkey. Beyhan Murphy, having spent many years in London working as a dancer and choreographer, after graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School, became the artistic director and co-founder of the company. Foreign guest choreographers were invited like Ashley Page, Richard Alston, Amanda Miller, Matthew Hawkins, Mark Baldwin, Michael Popper, Samuel Wuersten and Reinhild Hoffmann to stage their own pieces. The Company staged big productions for the general audience, of a rather mainstream quality. It still continues to this day, although Beyhan Murphy is no longer connected to the Company, as she now lives and produces in Istanbul.

Dans Fabrikası (Dance Factory) was an initiative of various dancers like former Türkuaz Company dancers and independently trained dancers. It started in 1992, performing their new creations oversees. Unfortunately, performances were not on a regular basis.

Berrak Yedek, a Turkish dancer, formed in various locales abroad, started a dance company for some years called Kumpanya Bale Türk. It consisted of young dancers who performed pieces in the neo-classical style.

Festival Organizations
Assos Performance Art Festival brought an interdisciplinary approach to dance/performance organized in a rural area of the Aegean region. It was an international festival that produced site-specific works in open air and in historical sites with the collaboration of the village people. Aydın Teker and Mustafa Kaplan were among the participants. The festival was inaugurated by a very innovative performer Hüseyin Katırcıoğlu, in 1993, and lasted until his death in 1999. He was in the process of creating a performance centre through his own efforts out of the ruins of an old factory but, tragically, died falling down from the roof, while trying to repair it. This event took place and some newspapers commented that it was the result of the lack of sponsorship for avant-guard performance arts and an example of the poor conditions of the artists.

Performance Days by an association of performance artists dags + (Interdisciplinary Young Artists Association) was organized three times in 1996, 1997 and 2003. They were an occasion to bring together artists from a diversity of disciplines. They were also an occasion for innovative choreographers to experience more in the field of performance and to create avant-guard pieces. Aydın Teker’s Co-m(press)ed was one of them. Another site-specific work was created in various locations of the old mint. The piece was more of a performed installation.

In fact, there have been quite a number of festivals organized, but none of them showed a long-term sustainability. Now, we have young festivals which will hopefully continue in existence. The situation seems to be a little bit more favourable, as there are lots of dance people who work in solidarity, but the financial part is still a problem. IKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts) has not yet been capable of raising funds for an international festival devoted to Contemporary Dance. They present some mainstream modern pieces in the Music Festival and some contemporary pieces in the Theatre Festival. International CRR Dance Festival lasted from 2000-2005, as an organization of the Municipality but stopped because of the policy of the government. There have been many independent initiatives, like Görünürlük Projesi (visibility project) organized in 2005 and 2006 by Galata Perform in the streets and art spots of Galata area dedicated to interdisciplinary performance projects, Açık Alan, organized in 2005 by Şule Ateş, was centred around another area called Cihangir, and mainly its park, Ph.D. Dance Days, organized by Barefeet Company in 2005, Istanbul Reconnects, an organization by bimeras, started last year and presented international works of contemporary dance and avant-guard performance, Techne 06 was the first international festival devoted to Digital Performance in 2006, Transit Doğaçlama will realize its second edition at the end of this month, a festival devoted to Improvisation. We had many firsts this year like Dance Camera Istanbul (the first festival on dance films), Istanbul Dance Festival (as the continuation of the one shot Istanbuldanse, organized by the French Cultural Institute in 2004), ÇGSG Sahne Sanatları Buluşması (Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative’s organization) in Kadıköy, the Asian side of Istanbul. The only sustainable festival that has being organized for nine years now is in Ankara, METU Contemporary Dance Festival which is international. It is an initiation of the university students who are involved in dance in their university years, bringing with them fresh ideas through an education in other disciplines, like architecture, sociology, etc... They formed a dance group that developed throughout the years and led some to continue as a dancer, choreographer, writer or instructor or went abroad to continue in their dance training. Handan Ergiydiren Özer, Şafak Uysal with his group Laboratoire are the some who now live and produce in Istanbul. There was also an attempt to create a modern dance department in Ankara Hacettepe University, but it failed in the end.

Geyvan McMillen, one of the first generation of dance figures, founded the dance department at the Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul. This department stands as the only professional contemporary dance education in a University Department apart from the Conservatory.


Independent Dance Training
In the beginning of the year 2000, there was a growth of dance studios for an independent form of dance training. Taldans was transformed into Çatı Studio in 2001 and then into Çatı Dance Association in 2004, with dancers being formed around Mustafa Kaplan, which started to programme performances and workshops on an international level. Later on, this led to the creation of another independent dance centre Dansbuluşma Istanbul that has formed and continues to form aspiring dancers. Bilgi Atölye of Istanbul Bilgi University included open dance courses in its regular programme. Mekan was an important locale offering regular courses and workshops for dance amateurs. However, it had to leave the building. There are more and more other dance studios focussed on contemporary dance like Rolling Dance and Açık Sahne that create their own circle of independent dancers.

Dance Companies and Project Groups starting in the 2000s
Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project, which started to produce independently in 2000, has become in fact the first dance company who produce under the sponsorship of a bank, Akbank Sanat. Zeynep Tanbay, who spent many years in the States, was trained in the Graham technique, and her works show a strong modern technique. The Company is composed of young dancers.

Geyvan McMillen started a dance theatre company with the students of the Yıldız Technical University Dance department. This dance company was under the sponsorship of CRR Municipal Concert Hall. It lasted for some years but as CRR stopped its support, the dance theatre took the name of Istanbul Dance Theatre and now works independently. The company hosts foreign choreographers and has staged some modern pieces.

Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası (Bare Feet Company) is an independent dance company composed of independent young dancers and choreographers from various dance backgrounds, like MSGSÜ Modern Dance department, METU Contemporary Dance Company, and others who have pursued their training abroad and who also perform in foreign companies. It is a very active company, performing their own creations along with collaborative international projects, inviting foreign choreographers to create for the company. They all have a very strong contemporary dance technique. It is probably the company that performs the most and the contemporary company which is the most well-known by the general audience. The company has a strong tendency to create dance works and installations in political discourse. The group is very active also in organization. They organized a dance festival Ph.D. Dance Days in June 2005 and a summer camp in 2006. The members are also actively engaged in their own artistic projects. The last big organization is Istanbul Dance Festival in June 2007.

Apart from the dance companies, there are some independent project groups. One of them is Dilek Evgin Dance Project. As an example of the first generation, Dilek Evgin comes from a ballet background and she is the head of the ballet department of the State Conservatory at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. She is working with the dancers of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet and her choreographies have a rather contemporary ballet style, with the dancers trained in a strong ballet technique.

Tuğçe Tuna Dance Project is a contemporary dance project of the choreographer Tuğçe Tuna. As she is training at the Conservatory, she enjoys the advantage of working closely with her students. She shows a very strong contemporary technique blended with innovative ideas. In her past pieces, she showed a very close link to her personal history.

Hareket Atölyesi is an independent group of women of different ages and different backgrounds who work in the field of performance. They have been working regularly since 2000 with the leadership of Zeynep Günsür.

Laboratuar is a group originally formed in Ankara, consisting of dancers coming from different University disciplines. Most of the members moved to Istanbul, as with Şafak Uysal, the leading choreographer of the group. They mostly produce works originating in an intellectual activity rather than in movement research.

Under 9 is another project group formed by the choreographer İlyas Odman. He is mostly known for his solo works in which he challenges himself with an object. He has just started to participate in foreign organizations.

Apart from the above, there are more independent younger generation choreographers such as Talin Büyükkürkçüyan, Aytül Hasaltun, Sevi Algan, Maral Ceranoğlu, and others, and many others to follow, thanks to the growing interest and enthusiasm for expansion, in quantity and eventually, in quality …



For some of the information in this text, I would like to thank Prof. Şebnem Aksan for her kind help, and to Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon for having left us an archive of the history of dance in Turkey.