Tuesday April 18, 2006
Anatolia delights
Dance and music from the Turkish region of Anatolia come alive when Fire of Anatolia comes to town next week, writes JASON CHEAH.
FIFTY-six kinds of music, 56 kinds of dance. Indeed, that is the expanse of the cultural history of Turkey, and the fire and passion from that nation’s Anatolia region are set to take the stage from April 26-28 at the Plenary Hall, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur.
“Many different cultures and religions live and have sprung from here,” Turkish ambassador Barlas Ozener said during a press meet to announce the show recently.
“This show is an amalgamation of culture and belief in Turkish culture and history,” he said.
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The Fire of Anatolia. |
The Fire of Anatolia is a unique project that gets its source from Anatolia’s ancient mythological and cultural history. Produced by Mustafa Erdogan, the group attempts to introduce to the world the fire that arises from the ancient mosaic of love, culture, history and peace of Anatolia spanning thousands of years.
(Anatolia is the region encompassing the Asian sector of Turkey. In ancient history, it has also been called Asia Minor. Over thousands of years the region has been populated by a host of peoples, including Hittites, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Greeks, Romans, Lydians, Persians, Goths, Kurds, Byzantines, Seljuk, Ottomans, Turks and even Celts. Today, the inhabitants are mostly Turkish speaking, with a significant Kurdish minority and a waning Armenian minority).
The seeds of the production began in 1999 when Erdogan started the project, then known as Sultans of the Dance.
Advertisements for the auditions were placed in the newspapers and 90 talented young dancers were selected out of 750 applicants, working night and day under the supervision of dieticians, modern and oriental dance instructors, folkdance experts and music instructors whose knowledge of the land’s music was second to none.
The Fire of Anatolia started its world tour in 2002 and since then has travelled and performed in nations such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, China, Romania, Qatar, Bulgaria, Jordan, Siberia, Azerbaijan, Japan and even Israel.
Some of the production’s accolades so far include becoming the first dance group to perform in The Building of China Parliament, the first show that was performed in Bodrum Antique Theatre after 2,300 years, and again the first show to be applauded by a standing audience of 400,000 at Eregli, on the banks of the Black Sea.
Over six million people from all over the world have now seen the show.
Artistic director Erdogan, born in Hakkari in 1965, studied philosophy at the University of Hacettepe and management in the Gazi University.
Further studies at the Bilkent University in 1997 in the field of folk dances were his first steps leading up to the founding of Sultans of the Dance. He was also choreographer for the Istanbul-Gül Düsündürü Playhouse and Besiktas Kültür Merkezi.
The show is brought to Malaysia by Jewels Events & Consultancy in collaboration with the under secretariat for defence industries, the Turkish Embassy and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
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