The Changing Dance Landscape of Istanbul in the Context of Its Urban Folklore

Abstract

Most of the studies on 'Istanbul’s folklore' have followed a historical perspective and focused on the city's founding myths and beliefs about its certain localities. Today's urban folklore, however, encompasses both material cultural changes and the various forms of artistic communication produced by social groups structured in the ethnographic context of these changes. This article analyzes the change in the dance genres performed in Istanbul since the 1980s and evaluates different dance experiences in the context of urban folklore. The concept of 'traditional dance' has been limited to Turkish folk dances since the early years of the Republic, nevertheless since the 1990s, Roma dance, belly dance and different ethnic dance forms (Irish, Peruvian or African) began to gain visibility in Istanbul's public space. Street performances of different ethnic groups were quickly acknowledged in Istanbul. In this process, other Latin dance forms such as tango or salsa, which were already spreading globally, began to be institutionalized in private dance clubs from the 1990s onwards. Since the early years of the Republic, dance has also been a cultural symbol of modernization, a fact best shown in the way dance is distinguished as "oyun” and “dans", referring to their Ottoman and Western contexts.