it's circle time..

Dancers: Steph Potter, Lauren Wallace, Kayleigh Prescott, Martin Shead, 

        Saskia Bell, Sam Reynolds, Matt Howell. 'White Wash 2011' 

Choreography: Ceyda Tanc. Photo: Roarke Pearce.

I have recently become very aware of the structure of Turkish folk dance classes, and the differences between folk dance class and contemporary technique class. The majority of the folk dance classes follow the same structure; A basic phrase/piece of rep is taught, with the female and male versions. Then several adaptations of the original phrase are taught. An example of this is in Zeybek, we learnt the basic phrase, then the phrase was repeated with several variations:

1. Basic phrase

2. Phrase with arm movements added

3. Traveling backwards

4. Traveling sideways

5. Phrase with turns added

6. Phrase jumping

7. Jumping with a squat added

8. Phrase with leg gestures

9. Hopping

10. Clapping gesture added

11. Final finishing version of the original phrase.

Not all of the dances are this long, and some have as little as only four or five versions. The class differs to a contemporary technique class, in that the dances are taught more as repertoire and you tend to only learn one dance per class, therefore the whole class is just building on that one initial phrase. Then the next class will be a quick recap, and on to a whole new dance. In contemporary technique however, you are generally taught several exercises and then sometimes one longer sequence towards the end of class. These exercises and sequences are often developed week by week rather than all within the same lesson.

In my experience so far, all but two of the Turkish folk dance classes I have participated in are performed in a large circle, moving anti-clockwise. I'm still unsure as to whether the majority of the dance styles are performed in a circle or whether it's for spacing, as a large percentage of the movement travels forwards and obviously there is limited space in a studio. So practicing with everyone in one large circle allows for endless amounts of traveling space.  

I think it's great that even though we are learning very traditional dance styles, and movement that has clear male and female roles, everybody always has to learn both the parts together and then either perform the movement as a female or male, as a whole group. There is very rarely a time when only the girls perform the female role, and the boys perform the male role. This makes it evident that although these dances were made in the past and are still taught in a traditional way, there are subtle changes that contribute to breaking the boundaries of this traditional movement.