Establishment and the process of development of Turkish national folk dance institutions
Establishment and the process of development of Turkish national folk dance institutions

Author(s): Mehmet Öcal Özbilgin
Subject(s): Anthropology, Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: folk dance; institution; Turkey; establishment; development
Summary/Abstract: In 1947, Madame Ninette De Volais was invited to Turkey to open a ballet school in order to establish the National Turkish Ballet. Halil Oğultürk was appointed as a teacher of the ‘national dances’ class. In 1951, Ensemble of People’s dances and songs of Serbia “Kolo” gave a concert in Ankara opera hall as part of the culture week organized by the Yugoslav Embassy. The staging power and cultural aspect of this performance had a great impact. As a result, Halil Oğultürk was sent by the government to former Yugoslavia for a year to do research on how to teach, document, choreograph and orchestrate dances. Thus, folk dance staging started to increase and turn into a modern presentation form in Turkey. The State Folk Dance Ensemble was established in 1975 under the Ministry of Tourism and Promotion as the first official professional folk dance ensemble. The innovative stage arrangements of the State Folk Dance Ensemble, which presents traditional dances with a modern staging approach, added a new dimension to the understanding of folk dance staging. The training activities for the professional dancers of the State Folk Dance Ensemble and the staging approaches created by the famous dance choreographers of the period would be the basis for the creation of the sports and performing arts courses included in the curriculum of the Turkish Folk Departments. In this study, I will discuss the effect of professional folk dance ensembles established in Eastern Europe on the establishment and development process of National Turkish Folk Dance Institutions. The social, economic, and political development of Turkish folk dance performances from the Republican period will be examined. The effect of Eastern European Professional Folk Dance Ensembles in the process of Turkish folk dance departments becoming an independent art branch in universities will be evaluated under this title.

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