https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9723-1558
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Abstract
For the past twenty-two years, productions by the Hareket Atölyesi Topluluğu (Movement Atelier Company), an all-female ensemble based in Istanbul, have related to spaces such as the country, the city, and the home. These spaces not only provide shelter but also give rise to existence and foster creation, thereby aligning with feminine characteristics and challenging hypermasculine powers. This article examines the works of Hareket Atölyesi Topluluğu using the concepts of chora, which refers to a formless interval, and of barzakh, which describes an in-between space. Ultimately, we seek to explore how these cultural conceptions of space inform artistic processes and resist hegemonic narratives.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Elizabeth Grosz, ‘Women, Chora, Dwelling’ in Architecture and the Feminine: Mop-Up Work, ed. Jennifer Bloomer, ANY: Architecture New York, No. 4 (January/February 1994): 22-27.
2 Stefania Bonfiglioli obtained this result by retranslating the passage from Strabo’s Geography, which was inspiring for our study. Stefania Bonfiglioli, “Moral re-turns in geography. Chora: On ethics as an image”, Progress in Human Geography 40, no. 6 (2016): 814, 810-829.
3 Platon, Timaios [Timaeus], trans. Erol Güney and Lütfi Ay, (Istanbul: Sosyal Publishing, 2001), (52 a-c) 53-54.
4 Kubbealtı Lugatı: Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük [Exemplary Great Turkish Dictionary], comp. İlhan Ayverdi, (Istanbul: Kubbealtı Publishing, 2011), 347, s.v. “Berzâh”.
5 Kubbealtı Lugatı: Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük [Exemplary Great Turkish Dictionary], comp. İlhan Ayverdi, (Istanbul: Kubbealtı Publishing, 2011), 347, s.v. “Berzâh”.
6 “Hence, barzakh is the mirror to both poles. The one who has seen barzakh has seen both poles on it”. Ibn Arabî, Fütûhât-ı Mekkiyye II [, Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya The Meccan Revelations], trans. Ekrem Demirli (Istanbul: Litera Publishing, 2009), 420.
7 Zeynep Sayın, noli me tangare: Bedenyazısı II [noli me tangare: Bodywriting II], (Istanbul: Kaknüs Publishing, 2000), 230.
8 Stefania Bonfiglioli, “Moral re-turns in geography. Chora: On ethics as an image”, Progress in Human Geography, 40, no. 6 (2016): 820.
9 Please see both S. Selim Kuru, “Istanbul: A City of Men” in A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul (Leiden: Brill, 2021) 63-85 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004468566_004; Ozbay and Ozan Soybakis, “Political Masculinities: Gender, Power, and Change in Turkey”, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 27, no. 1, (Spring 2020), 27–50, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxy/jxy040
10 Elizabeth Grosz, ‘Women, Chora, Dwelling’ in Architecture and the Feminine: Mop-Up Work, ed. Jennifer Bloomer, ANY: Architecture New York, No. 4 (January/February 1994): 22-27.
11 “The Ottoman Empire ruled across the Mediterranean world between the thirteenth and twentieth centuries, collapsing after World War I. The Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923, distancing itself from the Ottoman tradition to adopt a westernization reform program. In the Ottoman world, dance had a variety of forms with established traditions and institutions dating back to the thirteenth century.” Arzu Öztürkmen, “Modern Dance ‘Alla Turca’: Transforming Ottoman Dance in Early Republican Turkey”, Dance Research Journal 35, no. 1 (Summer, 2003), 38-60. With the establishment of the Republic and a strong desire for Westernization, many of these ancient dances were devalued and new forms were created.
12 Arzu Öztürkmen, Rakstan Oyuna: Türkiye’de Dansın Modern Halleri, [From Dance to Play: The Modern Forms of Dance in Turkey] (İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2016), 9.
13 For further discussion see Yeşim Arat and Şevket Pamuk, Turkey between Democracy and Authoritarianism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
14 Şerif Mardin, “Projects as Methodology”, Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba, (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1997); Şerif Mardin, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2006).
15 Muzaffer Evci, The Turkish Ballet in Its 60th Year, (Ankara: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2009); Naomi Benari, The Lives and Times of Molly Lake and Travis Kemp, (London: Avon Litho Ltd., 1990).
16 Metin And, A Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing: From Folk Dancing to Whirling Dervishes, Belly Dancing to Ballet, (Ankara: Dost Yayınları, 1976); Elizabeth Meath Baker and Bernard Burrows, “Memories of Madam”, Cornucopia 23, (2001); Zeynep Günsür Yüceil, Modernization Through Dancing Bodies in Turkey- The First 30 Years of Turkish State Ballet Institutions, (London: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010).
17 Aylin Kalem, “A Brief Account of the Contemporary Dance in Turkey”, DBM report, June 2007, http://aylinkalem.blogspot.com/2007/06/dbm-report.html
18 Koray Löker, “Hafıza Merkezi Activity Report”, Hakikat, Adalet ve Hafıza Çalışmaları Derneği Publishing, September 2, 2021, https://hakikatadalethafiza.org/en/kaynak/hafiza-merkezi-activity-report-2019-2020/accessed March 29, 2023.
19 M. Reyaz, and Z. Khan, “Neo-Ottoman Turk-Scape: Analyzing the Role of Dizis as Türkiye’s Soft Power”. Contemporary Review of the Middle East 10, no.3 (2023), 287-303. https://doi.org/10.1177/23477989231181788 and M. Ergin and Y. Karakaya, “Neo-Ottomanism versus Ottomania: Contestation of Gender in Historical Drama” in C., Raudvere and P. Onur, (eds) Neo-Ottoman Imaginaries in Contemporary Turkey. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08023-4_2
20 “The Istanbul Convention is a guarantee for women’s and lgbt+’s human rights. The İstanbul Convention Saves Lives!” Kadın Koalisyonu web site, https://kadinkoalisyonu.org/haber/the-istanbul-convention-is-a-guarantee-for-womens-and-lgbtis-human-rights-the-istanbul-convention-saves-lives/ and “Domestic violence: Turkey pulls out of Istanbul convention”, BBC web site, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56467689 accessed July 29, 2023.
21 “Interview: How Turkey’s Failure to Protect Women Can Cost Them their Lives,” Human Rights Watch, May 26, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/26/interview-how-turkeys-failure-protect-women-can-cost-them-their-lives and https://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/asia/turkiye.
22 Özden Melis Uluğ, Özen Odağ and Nevin Solak, “Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Turkey, Voices Against Misogyny in Turkey: The Case of a Successful Online Collective Action Against a Sexist Commercial”, International Journal of Communication 14, (2020) https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13032; Yeşim Arat, “Democratic Backsliding and the Instrumentalization of Women’s Rights in Turkey”, Politics& Gender 18, no. 4, (2022) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/democratic-backsliding-and-the-instrumentalization-of-womens-rights-in-turkey/7A2015147AD1F524D052FA23AAD2A2A9 accessed November 10, 2023.
23 HA, Ülke [Country], HA, YouTube video, 20:03, posted by HA on November 5, 2019, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/country/.
24 Rıfat N. Bali, The Anti-Greek Riots of September 6-7, 1955” Selected Documents From the National Archives of Great Britain and Some Memoirs, (Istanbul: Libra Publishing, 2022).
25 Kerem Öktem, “The Nation’s Imprint: Demographic Engineering and the Change of Toponymes in Republican Turkey”, European Journal of Turkish Studies 7, (2008). https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/2243 accessed on November 10, 2023.
26 « Zeki Arif Ataergin [song],” Lyrics: Ahmet Refik Altınay, Singer: Zeki Müren, Dilkeş-Haveran/Karanlık Ufuktan Güneş Doğmadı, Zeki Müren - 1955-63 Recordings, Kalan Müzik.
27 HA, Ülke/Yol-culuk/Hafıza [Country/Journey through Memory], HA, YouTube video, 19:40, posted by HA on November 4, 2019 http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/country-journey-through-memory/.
28 Yigal Schleifer, « Turkey: Taksim Square’s Long History,” eurasianet, June 4, 2013, https://eurasianet.org/turkey-taksim-squares-long-history-as-a-contested-space.
29 HA, Ülke/Yol-culuk/Hafıza [Country/Journey through Memory], HA, YouTube video, 19:40, posted by HA on November 4, 2019, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/country-journey-through-memory/
30 HA, İnsan(lık) Hali, [HUMAN(LY) CONDITION], YouTube video, 41:24, posted by HA on November 5, 2019, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/humanly-condition/
31 Hannah Arendt and Margaret Canovan, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
32 HA, İnsan(lık) Hali [HUMAN(LY) CONDITION], posted by HA on November 5, 2019, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/humanly-condition/
33 Adonis, Sufizm ve Sürrealizm [Sufism and Surrealism], trans. Nurullah Koltaş, (Istanbul: İnsan Yayınları, 2012), 81.
34 Adonis, Sufizm ve Sürrealizm, 81.
35 Stefania Bonfiglioli, “Moral re-turns in geography. Chora: On ethics as an image”, Progress in Human Geography, 40, no. 6 (2016): 814, 810-829.
36 HA, İnsanlık Hali (HUMAN(LY) CONDITION), HA, YouTube video, 41:24, posted by HA on November 5, 2019, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/humanly-condition/
37 Ibn Arabi, Fusus’ül Hikem [The Seals of Wisdom], trans. Ekrem Demirli, (Istanbul: Kabalcı Publishing, 2006), 371.
38 Fritjof Capra, “Deep Ecology: a New Paradigm” in Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century, ed. George Sessions (Boston: Shambala Publications, 1995), 19-25.
39 HA, aHHval, [cirCUMstances] Vimeo video, 01:18.27, posted by HA on December 16, 2011 http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/circumstances/
40 Halide Edip Adıvar, Mor Salkımlı Ev [The House with Purple Bunches of Grapes], (Istanbul: Can Publishing, 1963). Also see for further discussion: Çimen Günay-Erkol, “One Nation, Two Exiles: Displacement of Halide Edip Adıvar and Suat Derviş from Turkey’s Literary Scene”, Uluslararası Multidisipliner Kadın Kongresi Bildiriler Kitapçığı, [International Multidisciplinary Women Congress Proceedings Booklet],
Ege University Pub., 2011 https://www.academia.edu/30473472/One_Nation_Two_Exiles_Displacement_of_Halide_Edip_Ad%C4%B1var_and_Suat_Dervi%C5%9F_from_Turkey_s_Literary_Scene
41 Tezer Özlü, Çocukluğumun Soğuk Geceleri [Cold Nights of Childhood] (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Publishing, 2000).
42 Nilgün Marmara, Daktiloya Çekilmiş Şiirler [Typewritten Poems], (Istanbul: Everest Publishing, 2006).
43 Feroz Ahmed, Turkey: The Quest for Identity (Short Histories), 2nd ed. (London: Oneworld Publications 2014).
44 Tanıl Bora, Türkiye’nin Linç Rejimi [Lynch Regime of Turkey] rev. ed. (Istanbul: İletişim Publishing, 2021).
45 HA, aHHval, [cirCUMstances] Vimeo video, 01:18.27, posted by HA on December 16, 2011, http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/circumstances/
46 Özge Zihnioğlu, “The Legacy of the Gezi Protests in Turkey,” Carnegie Europe, October 24, 2019, https://carnegieeurope.eu/2019/10/24/legacy-of-gezi-protests-in-turkey-pub-80142; İlhan Uzgel, “Riots, Resistance and Repression: Notes on the Gezi Protests », The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations 43 (2012), https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/844945
47 HA, Ruhiye, [Mrs. Spirit], YouTube video, 38:13, posted by HA on November 4, 2019 http://hareketatolyesitoplulugu.com/en/works/mrs-spirit/.
48 Jacques Derrida, Khôra, trans. Didem Eryar, (Istanbul: Kabalcı Publishing, 2008), 8.
49 We use the term Gaia, inspired by the pre-modern concepts of Gaia and Mother Nature, which are embedded in ecofeminism. Pelin Kümbet, “Ekofeminizm: Kadın, Kimlik, Doğa” [Ecofeminism: Women, Identity, Nature],” in Ekoeleştiri Çevre ve Edebiyat [Ecocriticism, Environment and Literature] ed. Serpil Oppermann (Ankara: Phoenix Publishing, 2012).
50 Neveser Kökdeş, Hayal Ufkunda Uçan Binbir Renkler [Thousands of Colours Flying on the Horizon of Imagination], soloist: Zeynep Yazıcı, (İstanbul: Alaturka Records, 2020).
51 Tina Chanter, “Abjection, Death and Difficult Reasoning: The Impossibility of Naming Chora in Kristeva and Derrida,” July 15, 2000, accessed March 30, 2023, https://khora.site/chanter.html.
52 Paul Connerton, Modernite Nasıl Unutturur [How Modernity Forgets], trans. Kübra Kelebekoğlu, (Istanbul: Sel Publishing, 2011), 119.
53 Connerton, Modernite Nasıl Unutturur [How Modernity Forgets], 119.
54 Tevfik Fikret, Sis [The Fog, 1908] in Tevfik Fikret, (İstanbul: Koç University Press, 2021) 477-481. See also Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. N. Suner (Pekin), (İstanbul: İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti Yayınları, 1977) 74–75 in S. Selim Kuru, (2021). “Istanbul: A City of Men”, in A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul (Leiden: Brill, 2021) 63-85. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004468566_004
55 Cenk Ozbay, Ozan Soybakis, “Political Masculinities: Gender, Power, and Change in Turkey”, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 27, Issue 1, Spring 2020, Pages 27–50, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxy/jxy040
56 Jacques Derrida, Khôra, trans. Didem Eryar, (Istanbul: Kabalcı Publishing, 2008), 8.
57 Derrida, Khôra, 22.
58 Plato, Timaios (Timaeus), trans. Erol Güney and Lütfi Ay (Istanbul: Sosyal Publishing,
2001), (51 b), 52.
59 Ibn Arabî, Günümüz İnsanına Fusûsu’l-Hikem, Hikmetlerin Özü [Fusus Al-Hikam: The Seals of Wisdom] trans. Hamza Kılıç, (Istanbul: Insan Publishing 2002), 122.
60 Plato, Timaios [Timaeus], (52 a-c) 53-54.
*Devised theater, also known as collaborative creation, is a method of theater-making in which the script or (if the piece is mostly physical) performance score is the result of collaborative, often improvisatory effort by a performing ensemble. The ensemble is made up of actors, but other types of theater practitioners, such as visual artists, composers, and choreographers may also be important in this process of generative collaboration. In many cases, the contributions of collaborating artists may transcend professional specialization. See for example: Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition, (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2005); Joss Bennethan, Making Theatre, (London: Nick Hern Books Limited, 2013); Scott Proudfit and Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva “From Margin to Center: Collective Creation and Devising at the Turn of the Millennium” in Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013); Davis Robinson, A Practical Guide to Ensemble Devising, (London, New York: Routledge, 2015); Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva and Scott Proudfit (eds), Women, Collective Creation and Devised Performance, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Leslie Hill and Helen Paris, Devising Theatre and Performance: Curious Methods, (Bristol: Intellect, 2021).
*İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Mersin, Antalya and Samsun have state opera and ballet companies. Geyvan McMillen started to stage modern dance works in 1975 in the context of Ankara State Opera and Ballet, but it did not evolve into a company (see for further discussion: Tan Temel and Sernaz Demirel Temel, “Modern dance in Turkey with Geyvan McMillen “Yıldız Technical University Dance Program, Cemal Reşit Rey Dance Theater Company and Istanbul Dance Theater Company”, Journal for the Interdisciplinary Art and Education 2, no. 1, (June 2021), 75-103. There are currently two modern dance companies (MDT) in the context of state opera and ballet institutions, one in Ankara and the other in İstanbul. Ankara MDT started to stage works as a professional repertory ensemble in 1993 and İstanbul MDT in 2011.
† Following the establishment of the first state conservatory in Turkey in 1948, the number of institutions offering ballet education has increased over the years, but the forms of education have remained the same for a long time. Apart from the conservatories, which concentrate on formal and technical studies, the younger generation, who carry out their own physical training and come from many different academic disciplines, have brought their own experience to the field of dance. Therefore, the influence of this experience can be seen in the dance works they produce. For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between dance history and Turkish modernization, see Zeynep Günsür Yüceil, Modernization Through Dancing Bodies in Turkey: The First 30 Years of Turkish State Ballet Institutions, (London: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010).
‡ Oxford English Dictionary, post-truth, adj.: Originally U.S. Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion. https://www.oed.com/search/advanced/Entries?q=post-truth&sortOption=Frequency
*The company could not perform during the Covid 19 pandemic period.
*The word Dengbêj means singing the sound. Deng is sound and bêj is sing. This word is used in the sense of a person who ensures the harmonious performance of the word. Dengbêjs usually travel from village to village and live their lives with the epics, songs, hymns and stories they sing.
*One of the superstitions in Anatolia is that a saucer placed on a girl’s breast in adolescence will make it larger, and a coffee cup will make it smaller.
*Derrida refers to chora when he uses khôra.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zeynep Günsür Yüceil
ZEYNEP GÜNSÜR YÜCEİL is a faculty member at the Kadir Has University, Faculty of Art and Design, and the head of the Theater Department. She graduated from Bogaziçi University in Istanbul in 1989. She studied in India at Delhi University and trained in classical dances of India from 1990 to 1991. She completed her MA in Performing Arts at Middlesex University in London in 1994 and her PhD in History at Bogaziçi University in 2007. She has published in various media and is also a founding partner of an international educational collaboration with Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (Utrecht School for the Arts) and Glej Production House in Slovenia. In 1999, she formed Movement Atelier Company and has been performing with the company ever since.
Özlem Hemiş
ÖZLEM HEMİŞ is a faculty member at the Kadir Has University, Faculty of Art and Design, Theater Department, and the director of MA Program/ Film and Drama. She received her MA in Performing Arts from Dokuz Eylül University after studying Theatre Criticism and Dramaturgy at Istanbul University. In 2012, she obtained her PhD from Istanbul University. Her PhD thesis has been published as Gözün Menzili: İslami Coğrafyada Bakışın Serüveni (The Range of the Eye: The Journey of the Gaze in Islamic Geography) in 2020. She co-wrote the 20: 1989’dan Bugüne Istanbul Tiyatro Festivali (20: Istanbul Theater Festival since 1989) and has contributed articles to journals and books. She works as a freelance dramaturg and is also a researcher at the Swedish Institute funded project “Artistic Freedom and Children’s and Youth’s Perspective in the Arts in Turkey.”