[dance-tech] Yan: Re: March discussion forum: dance/performance and participation
- From: "nilufer ovalioglu" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "niluferovalioglu@xxxxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: "Johannes.Birringer@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <Johannes.Birringer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "dance-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dance-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2015 19:06:16 +0000 (UTC)
Dear All,Greetings from Turkey.Johannes asked me to share my experience as a
lecturer and theatre maker in Mardin, an ancient city in the Syrian border of
Turkey. So I share with you the following text I gathered. I hope it
contributes to the discourse:Although the area is recently known worldwide
through the news on ISIS, the war is an ongoing state in Southeastern Turkey
extending to Syria for many centuries. Life is and has been constantly
interrupted by multi layered conflicts, death of many people from different
ethnicities and religions and migration. It is where Armenian, Kurdish,
Turkish, Arabic and Assyrian histories intersect. Its ancient history carries
layers of stories and traces of civilizations that hunt the city as one crosses
the streets. Recently, I created a theatre play called Crossing. The text
consists of the words of local people, personal stories and tales proper to the
area. As an 'ear flaneur', I have been listening to people that I came across
without asking questions or leading for one year and a half now. The little
store I rented in the ancient marketplace became a centre for people to stop
and tell stories on the area and on their problems. My flaneurie of listening
began by walking and crossing stories and continued as I stood stable and
stories crossed my store. My overaall observations on the superiority of spoken
word over recorded information provided a base for the text of the play. As
opposed to the disreputable vertical bureaucratic construct of the 'democratic'
Turkish State, the area is self-governed by feudalities which require a
horizontal flux of negotiations and conflicts between locals. Therefore, verbal
communication is esteemed over recorded information. Furthermore, local
unofficial languages are mostly only spoken due to illiteracy and
discriminating state policies in the past. In fact the whole area extending to
Syria is multi lingual and lacking literateness. From such status quo
originates the routed tradition of tale telling in the middle east, serving as
a reflex to preserve social memory. The 'word' of the area's multilingual
people hides the emotional essence of Mardin, not seen or read in the
politicized complexities represented in the media.So the area has not been
invested on for centuries. Yet, the archeological findings, the multicultural
and multi religious monuments along with the stone houses that were ornamented
by Armenian and Assyrian stone, wood and metal masters, make the area a diamond
of tourism, in recent years. The area has been a dangerous place to visit
until ten years ago and its people have been left deprived of basic social
needs like proper education. Now it is treated as a touristic asset to invest
on. The area's new acquaintance with tourism investments form the surface
dramaturgy of the play while the tales that connect everyday conflicts to
concepts form the deeper mystical layer provide the deeper dramaturgy. For
instance the first ruler who built Mardin is told to have sacrificed his son to
the first ever construction of the town yet somehow a peasant boy gets
sacrificed instead and the area is cursed with 'strangers' benefiting from it
ever since.While researching for the play I encountered many people who were
used to living in the war zone. These people endured many years of conflicts.
Their way of carrying information to the next generation has been through
spoken word and tales, which became my medium for the play. The 'personal' is
an important layer in the play that determines the emotional map of the area
underneath the war, the tourism investments and racial and religious conflicts.
The play aims to reveal the hidden problems of the area touching upon a
housewife's desire to become a lawyer, a doctor's complainst on women giving
birth to more then 10 babies each, a granni's story on storks wars, a boy's
memory of being beaten in school because he couldn’t answer in Turkish and the
cliché speech of area's minister of education on how children is our future.
Finally the play reveals the ongoing wars' common characteristic: Armenians ,
Kurdish, Assyrians, Turkish, every identity is somehow forced to leave and now
Syrian refugee camps are everywhere. Its a state of constant turbulance over
centuries.While forming the text I worked with eleven university students from
the uni where I work as a lecturer. Their contribution to the project is part
of the journey about the representing the area. During the 3 months that we
worked on the play because of the ISIS massacre on Kurdish people in Kobane
(Syria), protests sprung in the area where people died and streets burned in
chaos. For the very first time in central Mardin protesters tried to burn the
stores and create chaos. The people didnt allow it. Althought the case with
Kobane is horrifying part of the protests were provocations, very dangerous
ones. A military curfew has been declared for the first time in 10 years. This
is representative of everydaylife in the area. A dramaturgy of İnteruption.
Projects, artistic, attempts, education and such, all are interrupted by some
kind of conflict. During the time of the military curfew, the Mardin Biennale
was cancelled but I decided to go on with rehearsals. After all, completing
meant more then anything else. Until our premier in the Mardin Theatre
Festival we worked hard to gather the play and maybe for the first time such
work has been achieved. Despite the Turkish Authorities' constant
'interuption' by casually taking over our rehearsal space as they wished, we
made and played the play in 4 cities near the Syrian border, even to Syrian
refugee kids. With an immense culture of corruption, the state does everything
to help investors who build high ugly buildings in the 'new' centre of the city
but lacks to give attention to artistic expression of what is really going on
to locals. Mardin Artuklu University has been established 5 years ago with the
aim to provide social sciences education to the area. We came as a team of arts
lecturers and practitioners 2 years ago and established the Faculty of Fine
Arts, that yet has only painting students. Sculpture and Screen Arts
departments will follow this year. It has been tremendous work gathering
equipment and facilities to open these departments. Fine Arts Faculties are not
highly regarded in Turkey. In intensely conservative Muslim areas fine arts
faculties only have 'traditional art' department more like a craft department.
Therefore preparing such contemporary programs with interdisciplinary attitudes
and lecturers has been a challenge. But we did it. I can safely recommend the
quality of our lecturers who exceed the expectation of the area and Turkey. Yet
the corruption of the state has been reflected onto the university. During our
rehearsals, our dean and two lecturers have been wrongly arrested because of
the corruption while purchasing our computers and stayed under custody for four
days. The trial is still going on. Then, why stay here?I moved here because I
did not want to undergo the constant mobbing in private universities I worked
in İstanbul. Yet coming here was by far the best decision I ever took.
Witnessing the culture of storytelling, vocal rituals, dances and arts that
will disappear soon is priceless. My quest to find tales that make life
meaningful as a storyteller is constantly fulfilled. I find myself developing
methodologies for producing theatre here, with people from here. I reveal the
'personal' stories of people and face the general politics of war with what is
personal and unique to local people. This might be my stand against the
generalizing and categorizing attitude of all sides. I teach the module 'Text
and Image' here at the university. I try to transfer the idea of memory and
multi-meaning producing to students to draw them back from 'general' ideas in
the uni. Unfortunately the area has been left ignorant intentionally to keep
wars going on. So it is quite an effort to break their prejudices about
identities. Five years from now, this place may be another country, hit by Isıs
or an ancient Touristic attraction. Within such uncertainties lies the essence
of theatre and more then ever I feel at the steps of Artaud as he searched
'for the shadow of effigies'. Life , God, meaning is more here. Warm Regards,
Nilufer Ovalıoglu,PhD
Mardin Artuklu University
20 Mart 2015 22:40 Cuma tarihinde Johannes Birringer
<Johannes.Birringer@xxxxxxxxxxxx> şöyle yazdı:
dear all
I had been meaning to respond to Diego's comment on his current work -- can
you tell us a bit more about your research and what you are looking at?
I think the study of empathy has been on the upswing recently, and I remember
traveling up north for a couple of workshops; that research eventually resulted
in the book edited by
Dee Reynolds and Matthew Reason, (2012), "Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and
Cultural Practices," Bristol: Intellect. Have you come across it, did you
find it helpful?
Another performance artist recently told me about her work on somatics and
affect (affect theory), she just very recently published an article on her
performance and dance work:
Victoria Gray, "Beneath the Surface of the Event: Immanent Movement and the
Politics of affective registers," Choreographic Practices 4:2 (2013), 173-87.
Victoria also wrote
a piece called "Loop", Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 4:2, 2012, 283-95
-- I wonder whether this journal addresses the research field of
somatics/cognitive science in ways helpful to you?
Tomorrow, in fact, I will be quietly participating in an experiment that Dr
Guido Orgs (life science/neuroscience) is conducting at Brunel, we expect about
150 subjects over the weekend, and the
explorations focus on "Synchronous movement cooperation and the performing
arts", an ESRC-funded project looking into dance and "using dance as a means
to study how moving together is linked to liking each other. Similarly,
observing other people move together may be enjoyable because it showcases
successful social interactions. The research will involve “dance workshops” in
which groups of people will be asked to learn short dance choreographies while
cooperation and sympathy between performers and observers of the workshop will
be measured. Motion sensors and neuroimaging methods will be used to identify
brain mechanisms involved in movement synchronization and in watching other
people dance together."
so far so good, I've been to the test rehearsals, and was invited to help
record 3D data (kinect camera system), and we also use a bird-eye view camera
in the space. Maybe later I can report more on the participatory role of my lab
with the scientists from experimental psychology.
regards
Johannes Birringer
[Diego schreibt]
I am a relatively junior member of this list/community, and I have also been
just lurking for the most part. My attention is drawn to Dawn’s observations
around the overabundance of information and avenues for discussion (are we
seeing digital communication and networking technologies being pushed to a
breaking/inflection point?).
I’m also curious to learn more about what “strange places” the the “old gang”
have been to. I myself started off in contemporary dance and in computer
science, and now myself doing a PhD in a psychology department looking at
bodily empathy, and the links between somatics and cognitive science…
Diego
--
Diego S. Maranan {www.diegomaranan.com<http://www.diegomaranan.com>}
Marie Curie Research Fellow
CogNovo {www.cognovo.eu<http://www.cognovo.eu>}
Cognition Institute
Plymouth University | Drake Circus | Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
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