by Walladah What if there was a dance in which we are not expected to bring joy to the
audience? What if there was a dance that lets us free to have any emotions we
want? What if there was a dance in which we are not expected to dance as if
we are perfectly healthy and able but into which we can bring all injuries,
health issues, despair, wrath and sorrow? What if there was a dance that no-
one can depoliticise and pretend that the dance is politically neutral? What if
there was a dance into which we can bring all our personal and collective
histories, if we wanted to?
We are so much indoctrinated in oriental dance teaching spaces that we have
to keep our true emotions, problems, injuries, disabilities and politics out of
the dance as such, in order to seem… artistic?
For those who have some familiarity with the communal or folk dance
traditions of Turkey, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece, zeybekiko (ζεϋμπέκικο), Зейбек and
zeybek oyunu are popular dance forms. It is danced in a variety of occasions
and has its own styles of music by region, historical period, and community or
social group. It can be fun, can be used for celebrations of all types, and it is
danced by a solo dancer, two dancers or more dancers on the dancing space.
I had written a brief historical account of the dance some years ago
challenge-zeybek-dances-cultures/] and now I want to focus on the mentality
of this art.
As a Thracian, with family originating in Eastern Thrace (Doğu Trakya, in
Türkiye-Turkey), who has lived her childhood in (Western) Thrace, Greece, I
learned this dance since childhood because everyone in the family and in our
communities danced it. In the south of Greece the dance is not so popular and
there are people who are not happy to see women dancing it, an idea that
would be unthinkable in Thrace or in Turkey. Thrace (1) is thought to be one of
the homelands (2) of the dance, although we Thracians don’t claim exclusive “invention” or patent on it. What we however insist upon is that the dance is
danced with respect to its traditions and not for showing off superficial things,
much less for showing off toxic masculinity. The expectation that this dance
never forgets the need for integrity and an active stance against injustice is
common in all communities who see it as a traditional.
[1 Thrace is a region in the South Eastern Balkan peninsula, nowadays in three different countries: Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace
2 Other possible homelands are Anatolia-Turkey, Iran (and the old Persian states’ territories), and West part of Central Asia. If you can speak Turkish, you may watch this short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSbPo1XA5eM that explainσ the Central Asian origin of the dance and emphasises the personality and social behaviour qualities of the Zeybek, out of which “heart” and standing up against injustice are the most important ones. I would need another essay to discuss the origins of the dance and of Zeybeks in order to make justice to all the traditions that are involved in this dance form.] The dance is and is expected to be improvised, even in a group dance setting.
Watch for example this zeybek dance from Döğer of Turkey
There are choreographies made for the dance but traditionally the dance is
seen to be the real thing when it is not choregraphed, because the dancers are
expected to dance their and with their soul.
The photos feature details from traditional clothing styles exhibited at the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, Turkey. A great example of contrasting choreography and improvised dance is the
zeybek dance of Kostak Ali, with a troupe repeating a sequence learned from a
previous dance of his, and Kostak Ali source dancer dancing his own thing,
whenever he feels like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaZWbrqUTTY
When zeybek dance says “with your soul”, it means it. If you are happy, if you
feel you are having a good time, if you want to make a joke and dance a
zeybekiko, you are free to dance it. See how much joy these Cypriot dancers
share with the people around them
And if you are sad, if you are tired or angry, you are also free to dance it.
Contrary to the training to express yourself but not so much as to impede the
entertainment of others who might have certain expectations; and contrary to
the teaching that if you are sad, you forget about it on stage, this dance tells
you to take your whole soul with you when you dance. That also means, your
whole body. You don’t need to pretend you are young. You dance your years
on this earth. You don’t need to pretend you have no injuries suffered, if those
affect your movement. You don’t need to “suck it up” and dance as if they
don’t exist.
You don’t have to leave your trauma backstage. This dance tells you that you
don’t have to “use techniques” to condition yourself when trauma reappears as stage fright or memories that make the social party seem insignificant. Bring
them all with you.
Because zeybek oyunu, zeybekiko, wants you to dance as a whole being.
We are taught to hide or forget about all parts of ourselves that make us
“imperfect” in a patriarchal, capitalist, hierarchical, racist, ableist, ageist,
colonial world. However, zeybek dance acknowledges that we all might have
been through difficult things. These are not tolerated in the dance but
appreciated. The whole mentality of the dance is that real people live real
lives, and those are not only colourful, sparkly and glorious, but also difficult,
painful or horrifying. Instead of closing our eyes to that reality and
sugarcoating ourselves to please unaware (but maybe equally traumatised)
audiences, we can dance to tell the truth as it is. That we are not shiny only but
also dark. That we are not only timidly wishing for “world peace” but we also
fight for it. And our choices have their costs and consequences.
This dance expects us to be so political as to dance our personal and collective
struggles without rounding and softening them for the audience. The audience
is not around to be pleased by fake joy, but to be allowed to ditch all fakeness
for a moment and reflect about their own injuries, despair, politics and lives, as
they are.
Watch a clip from a movie, in the storyline of which a work accident happened
and killed a young worker from a community of 1922 refugees. The community
is mourning him and the dance is meant to show that “we did not bury an old
man to keep quiet” [meaning they are going to make a protest out of their
grief] and also to keep Death away because “he is afraid of dance and songs”.
A dance that traditionally has been attributed to social struggle veterans and
resistance fighters is a collective agreement between the community and the
dancers that you cannot have a ghazi or resistance veteran dancing and expect
them to please you with their dance. Who are you to tell the person who
fought for you, how to dance? Is there anyone ever daring enough to say that
such a person, maybe with an injury or disability, dances worse than the “un-
smoked” (3) ones who had a life of privilege? [3 Un-smoked here is a direct translation from Greek, άκαπνος, άκαπνη, άκαπνο and it means the person who never participated in anything difficult or never experienced anything so intense in life that made the person dirty with smoke on face. It could be saving a forest from wildfires or going to a demonstration that has to deal with policy brutality.] Quite the opposite. This dance goes beyond the neoliberal and very offending
term of inclusivity. This art does not include the wronged, the injured or the
desperate due to injustice as a favour or because the privileged ones are good
people and allow the rest to join. The dance is and has been created by those
who might have had difficult lives themselves. It is the injured old dancers with
the stories to tell who make the dance and do us a favour to dance with an
audience around, to include the audience in one’s one reflection, in one’s real
or imaginary discussion with a comrade (4) or group of comrades. The dance is of
the dancers.
This is why the dancer is not obliged or expected to ever look at or to the
audience, or to smile at them, although in a joyful zeybek the dancers might
choose to do so.
See here how the two dancers look at each other but never to anyone else.
The dancers are not expected to make the audiences comfortable with the
difficult emotions histories of the dancer might evoke. If the audience feels
uncomfortable to watch a stumbling dancer or one seemingly lost in one’s
thoughts, that is their own, irrelevant to the dance, problem.
The zeybek dance is not danced to showcase skill only, or beauty or strong
bodies. Those might also exist but they are secondary. Literally the dance
always asks:
Did you dance with your soul?
Did you live with your soul?
The concept of perfection develops on a completely different basis than what
the commercialised westernised oriental dance world has been accustomed to.
The perfection in zeybek dance comes from our ability to stand up for all the
important things, neither from any able body and perfect neurological system,
nor from the smartest mind, but from the greatest heart, from a life lived with
personal and collective integrity. This is expected to show even when the
dancer dances alone a zeybek, because in all cases the dancer is a member of
the community with strong relationships with it. [4 In Greek “comrade” is translated as σύντροφος which literally means the person with whom you eat food together. In Turkish “comrade” is translated with yoldaş, which means the person with you walk together on your path. Both terms are used for political partners, good friends and romantic partners.] Dancers can have a lot of fun, make jokes in zeybek dance or they can express
the heartbreak in ways that the community who watches the dance also
shares. Watch here Müzeyyen Senar to sing and dance (after 1:27) a song that
is about love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bStHxtHSPJ4&t=111s
The zeybek dance can also convey the pride of the dancers as members of the
collective and the pride of the collective as the group who has such a person
and dancer among them. The community itself appreciates the dancer not
because they are the best technically, but because they are the best as
persons, as militants, and as humans with justice-oriented lives. Talking about
technique: the kinesiology of the dance is such that the best technique is
considered to be with those who have life experience, those who struggle but
still dance, those who survived harsh situations and kept their humanity. The
kinesiology is not favouring acrobatic, athletic bodies at all if the soul is
missing.
Now the question is: How would the audience know about the life experience
and the social integrity of the dancer if they do not know much about them?
The community usually knows the person who dances, that is true. But also, it
is again the kinesiology of the dance that makes everyone to appreciate those
who stood up against injustice and did not sit on their privilege, those whose
bodies got tired, trembling or confused rather than those with a metronome
understanding of music showing they care too much about unimportant
things.
Yes, there is a rather high expectation of musicality in zeybek dance but the
dancer hears the music in ways that enable the dance to “discuss” with their
dance the topics they want. This is why zeybek dancers usually don’t dance any
zeybek dance but only the one or those that express best their personality,
mood and history. There is no expectation for any zeybek dancer to dance a
“classical piece” or anything that another person wants to watch as a dance.
There is no such thing in zeybek dance. The choice of the music and the dance
style show the quality of the person and (must) come from the dancer. The
person does not get any quality from anything else than what they tell the
community with their dance.
Watch here Dimitris Mitropanos dancing after 03:15, how he dances for
himself and with what mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXVamHhnQy4. The lyrics are an imaginary dialogue with famous communist theorist and activist Rosa
Luxemburg and talk about the difficulty with which history and life evolve (5).
This is why the macho, ableist performances or the polished choreographed
dances look so off even to outsiders of the dance. It is something in the music
and then in the kinesiology that keeps apart the show off from the dancing
soul of a dancer. This is why the dance is traditionally danced by everyone,
irrespective of age, gender or ability, although yes, patriarchy under certain
settings tries to appropriate the dance, and fails. The warrior dancer can be
anyone provided they have the courage and integrity to be warriors, and yes,
the politics of it. But this should be the topic for another essay. [5 The song had a clear meaning in the leftist circles of Greece but the creators needed time to reveal and confirm the meaning in public. https://menshouse.gr/istories/160890/oloi-epsachnan-na-ti-vroyn-poia-itan-telika-i-roza-sto-emvlimatiko-tragoydi-toy-mitropanoy ]