Abdurrahman, a music conservatory student, is eager to perform the mevlit (a hymn about the birth of the Prophet Muhammed) just as it was hundreds of years ago. He sets out to learn by meşk (one-to-one training in the traditional arts), an increasingly rare form of teaching given the dwindling numbe...
Described as “art-anarchists”, BaBa ZuLa have carved out a name as fine purveyors of alternative Anatolian music, a hip psychedelic blend of electro, dub, funk, rock ‘n’ folk. Lyrically conscious, their other-worldly Oriental dance beats, playful dress sense, and surreal live performances have gaine...
On 3rd Oct., a capacity 300 people packed into a North London theatre to be wowed by this spectacular Turkish dance production. A cast of 42, dressed in stunning costumes, performed exquisitely in a show internationally acclaimed Turkish Cypriot dancer Özgen wrote, choreographs and stars in. The...
The 77th year of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s passing has been commemorated across Turkey and the Turkish Diaspora today. Turkey’s founding father not only presided over vital military victories at Çanakkale and the Turkish War of Independence, which liberated Turkey from foreign powers, but also hel...
Tickets for all four shows of Hussein Chalayan’s new dance theatre production Gravity Fatigue have sold out. The show premieres at Sadler’s Wells – the world’s leading dance space – next Wednesday. Chalayan, 45, returns to the venue that hosted his iconic Afterwords collection…
Conceptual artist Mustafa Hulusi has long been fêted in art circles. On a par with his better known Turkish Cypriot peers Tracey Emin and Hussein Chalayan, his work certainly deserves much wider recognition. Born in London in 1971 and a graduate of Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art,...
A song by Turkey’s Selda Bağcan features on Compton – the new chart-topping Hip Hop album by Dr Dre that was released worldwide earlier this month. The superstar producer samples the psychedelic guitar riffs from Bağcan’s 1976 classic İnce İnce for Issues, which features Ice Cube, Dem Jointz and And...
Saban’s Turkish Cypriot dad still doesn’t know he does stand-up. Sarah’s Czech grandmother knows she does it, but doesn’t know what it is. Next weekend this newly paired comedy duo will perform the world premiere of their show at the Camden Fringe Festival. During their hour-long comedy narrat...
Slight in frame but big in voice Çiğdem Aslan, is an enchanting addition to the musical world of rebetiko or ‘the Aegean Blues’. In her most recent London concert, Aslan transported audience members from the wooden pews of Islington’s 19th Century Gothic style Union Chapel to the cobb...
