ABOUT THIS BOOK

Dissenting Through Dance examines how femme activists in contemporary Turkey deploy folk dance as a powerful tool of political resistance and collective solidarity. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, choreographic analysis, and archival research, the book examines how traditional dances, particularly those rooted in marginalized cultures such as Kurdish, Roma, Alevi, Laz, and Hemşin communities, are reimagined to contest misogyny, cultural erasure, and oppressive gender politics. Sevi Bayraktar brings to life the stories of feminist, LGBTQ+, and grassroots activists occupying public spaces with dance as a form of protest when conventional forms of assembly are suppressed or criminalized in Turkey.

Working outward from these femmes’ stories, protests, and dances, Bayraktar argues that by reconfiguring Turkey’s folk-dance heritage for their contemporary political aims, dissenting femmes rechoreograph national space in opposition to the state as a way to reclaim the public sphere for pluralist democracy and to subvert hegemonic discourses about Turkish national identity, neoliberal economic development, and female and ethnic bodies. By moving together, activists subvert patriarchal norms, embody new visions of community, and create moments of hope, joy, and resistance even under conditions of surveillance and fear.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sevi Bayraktar is Professor of Dance Studies, Music, and Performance in Global Contexts at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne, Germany.

REVIEWS

“Inspired by the 2013 Istanbul Gezi Park uprisings, the dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Sevi Bayraktar goes beyond specific historical moments to explore when revitalized folk dance and music traditions meet political activism. Her detailed, layered research draws on photography, gender and archival studies to offer innovative thinking about embodiment and performance in Turkey’s public spaces.”

— Susan Slyomovics, University of California Los Angeles

“This book offers an original, ethnographically grounded, and well-theorized account of the relationships between gendered bodies, movement, and space in the context of nation-making and counter-hegemonic politics through the lens of dance. Providing a non-naively hopeful archive of gendered resistance choreographed by Turkey’s women and LBGTI+ activists who dance their way towards social justice under escalating authoritarianism, the book makes an exciting contribution to dance and performance studies, gender and feminist studies, Middle Eastern and Turkish studies, and the interdisciplinary literature on social movements.”

— Zeynep Korkman, University of California Los Angeles

“Dissenting Through Dance: Folk Dance, Gender, and Political Protest in Turkey brings a dancing practice into the spotlight which still remains marginal in dance studies, showing that the practice of folk dancing is both contemporary and political. It is a powerful document of political activism in Turkey.”

— Eike Wittrock, Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien

“Dissenting Through Dance: Folk Dance, Gender, and Political Protest in Turkey plays a pivotal role in putting Turkey on the map of global dance studies and makes a critical contribution to the literature on dance and politics.”

— Rüstem Ertug Altinay, University of Milan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

List of Figures: ix

List of Abbreviations: xi

Author’s Note: xiii

Preface: xv

Acknowledgments: xvii

Introduction: Stepping into the Dance Circle: 1

Chapter 1. Precision: Choreographing the Authentic Female Folk-Dancing Body: 35

Chapter 2. Dispersal: Dancing Public Political Assembly at the Peripheries: 76

Chapter 3. Imprecision: Choreographing Agonism into the Body Politic: 110

Chapter 4. Embellishment: Reclaiming the Revolutionary Body: 146

Chapter 5. Reassembly: Reconfiguring Horon Across the Rural, Regional, and Urban Diaspora: 181

Coda: Stepping Out of the Dance Circle: 221

Notes: 231

References: 239

Index: 275

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