Dancing Ideologically: The Case of Halay

• In Event: Dancing the Anthropocene: Envisioning Rituals, Bodies, Environments and Political Situatedness through the Lens of Dance - I

Abstract

What turns a dance into a political act? While dancing itself is transient, how can a particular dance be loaded with highly contentious meanings? Is the meaning of the dance in the eye of the power? Or is it the intention of the dancing bodies that give a dance its meaning? This paper will seek answers to these questions through the lens of a popular (semi)circle dance. In Turkey, halay is not only a hugely popular form of collective performance and pleasure but it is also a tradition that intersects quite acutely with various modalities of cultural and ethnic identification as well as political critique. It is not unusual to see it in the accusations brought against activists that they danced “ideological halay.” In the meantime, halay is often danced at demonstrations by protesters as an act of resistance and solidarity. In pursuit of unravelling the process of its politicization, this paper will look at halay over the last few decades and will follow it through its transnational journey. Comparing the Turkish and German contexts will enable us to look at different meanings attributed to the dance as well as its relationship to space, identity, and politics.

Author

• Habibe Senturk, University of Göttingen