TURKEY ~ Call to Prayer (July 10 2012)

 

Call to Prayer. Kurds.  Halay Dances.
  

It feels like I’m flying through Central Asia.  Since my last Public Letter about Tajikistan, I’ve trapsed through the oldest cities in the world in Uzbekistan (Bukhara and Samarkand), flown in and out of the “New York City of Central Asia”(sophisticated Almaty in Kazakhstan), and danced at two Syrian- Kurdish and Zaza ethnic weddings in eastern Turkey.  Far from my fears that I wouldn’t be able to stand being a tourist for three full months, I’m thriving and loving each day.  

The irony of being a solo traveler is that one seldom travels alone. 

TURKEY ~ Dancing beneath the Full Moon (July 7 2012)

Remembering Bora Özkὅk.  Turkey's 4,000 Folkdances.  Two weddings.   
 Kazali, the Shoulder Shaking Dance.  Halay.
 

This letter is for the Folklore Village Dancers of the 1980’s [1] – and for all of the old Folklore Village crowd in Wisconsin who learned from Bora Özkὅk how to ululate and shimmey the shoulders and chest and who caught the fever of Turkish dancing.

Bora Ozkok 1979. Photo credit: Phantomnet.com

The Turkish government should give Bora a Medal of Honor for undoubtedly bringing so many travelers to Turkey – all those 1980’s dancers from Boston and Mendicino Folkdance Camp in California who signed up for his folk dance tours in the days before he figured out that you couldn’t make money off folk dancing hippies and switched to doing tours of Turkey for affluent retirees.  I don’t think any of us at Folklore Village signed up – was it the money, the idea of a “tour,” or was it that by that time we’d already switched allegiance to Norwegian pols and Swedish hambo? 

Can we roll back the clock, please?  I’d take that tour now!  Turkish folk dancing with Bora in TURKEY.  That would be heady.