Avant-garde dance makes a splash in İstanbul with iDANS

“Both laughing and crying can push us into tears,” says Aydın Silier, one of the co-curators of the festival, in an interview with Today's Zaman. “Both are experiences which remind us that our feelings, thoughts and beliefs are a whole in ourselves. Both actions can transform into one another. Thus we invited works investigating how this situation can be turned into choreography of contemporary dance.”

The festival, organized by the İstanbul-based Bimeras Culture Foundation, is celebrating its third edition and boasts an expanded program. Marking its opening with the Nature Theater of Oklahoma's “Romeo and Juliet” on Oct. 10 at the İstanbul State Theater's Tekel Theater, the festival runs until Oct. 31 at the Garajistanbul performing arts platform.

“Our aim was to make Turkey acquire an international festival in the area of contemporary dance,” says Silier. “There had been some attempts under bigger projects like the İstanbul Theater Festival, but we saw there was no possibility for the Turkish audience to meet the avant-garde names of this area. The iDANS festival developed rapidly over two years, and it has become one of the most important festivals in Europe.”

Contemporary dance in Turkey

Contemporary dance as an art discipline is quite a new phenomenon in Turkey and is still in the process of being developed. “It is a new artistic discipline nurtured by and also nurturing other contemporary arts,” notes Silier. “iDANS has taken on an important role during this process of establishment. This has also influenced the process of creating new works and new productions in Turkey in a very positive way. Five years ago, when a youngster told his or her parents that he or she wanted to be a dancer, this was found to be odd. Now there are two universities which have contemporary dance departments so young people are more comfortable and conscious about making their decisions.”

The festival is not the only event organized in this respect. “In order to contribute to the development of contemporary dance in Turkey, we organized international educational programs and tours for Turkish artists.” Silier indicates that they paved the way for the young generation that wants to dance. “Secondly, we were concerned that there should be a more aware audience in Turkey. And thirdly, we will focus on supporting the education of new artists and the creation of new products, so in this respect we are partners of three different European Union projects.”

The festival, dedicated to two legendary names of contemporary dance, Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham, seems to reflect the line between these two figures. Hosting artists from seven countries, the range of the performances vary in terms of style and approach. “These two artists are two different edges in the history of dance,” notes Silier, “but two edges which balance each other like two sides of a scale. We took this balance into consideration while picking the works in the festival.”

Apart from the 13 performances and film showings, there are also two surprise performances, with one of them coming up tomorrow. “We don't want to give clues about our surprise performances,” says Silier, “but I can say that the audience won't regret having seen it. [Sunday's] surprise performance will be a work which has been put onstage a lot in international festivals.”

However, the shows will not end after the festival. “After the festival, we will invite some performances again during the [2009-2010] season,” says Silier. “In every festival, we are organizing a conference related to the theme. A conference on ‘Laughing-Crying' will take place in the spring. İDANS is not only a dance event, it also focuses on theoretical approaches [in dance] and features conferences and publications [on dance theory].”

‘Without’

One of the most interesting and striking performances of the festival was that of the famous French choreographer Martine Pisani. Presenting a rather different performance from a conventional dance show, Pisani also has a different background from others. “I began dancing rather late, after the age of 22,” says Pisani. “I didn't go to any dance school but I had the chance to meet people who engaged me directly in [dance] shows. They took me as I am, so it offered a lot of freedom for me.”

Pisani presented her performance on Oct. 17 at Garajistanbul and also held a dance workshop at Yıldız Technical University. “I agreed to put on a workshop because I wanted to meet people,” Pisani notes.

Pisani's work, titled “Sans” (Without), includes no set decor, no music, no text and no light effects, but has a humorous language. “I don't use music [all the time], I use music when I need it,” explains Pisani. “For me, the most important thing is to be in front of the audience. For that, we try to be as simple as possible, standing on stage and being as we are. But it's not that easy to be so simple and to be in front of an audience and in the meantime deal with the text of a theater [play]. They say that I'm not working with sound, but that's not true because, in the first place, I hear. Hearing and listening comes first: listening to each other, listening to the dance we perform. And the audience can laugh as much as they can allow themselves to laugh.”

The show's title seems to be a reference to the situation of remaining as simple as possible while conveying numerous messages to the audience. “At the beginning it was untitled,” notes Pisani, “because I was waiting for the title, but when we started working, it was without sets, music, light or sound effects. Without these, we worked a lot on transitions. ‘Without' but with a lot.”

iDANS runs until Oct. 31 at the Garajistanbul performing arts platform. For the remaining performances on the lineup, check the festival's Web site: www.idans.info/idans03/tr/performances.php