Ceyda Tanc Dance are working on a new piece for touring in 2012 and 2013, called Volta. Initial inspiration for the piece came from Ceyda’s dad, telling us stories of a walking exercise played in Turkish prisons, named Volta. In pairs, the inmates would walk a short distance side-by-side. When they wanted to turn and walk back, the ‘rule’ was that they have to turn in towards each other. If one turned their back on the other, it was considered as an insult and a betrayal. The tense atmosphere that this creates and the idea of what might happen if one person turned their back on the other, provided impetus for creating movement material Ceyda paired the themes with a type of Turkish folk dance called Kafkas.
This particular form of Turkish dance is very sharp and physically demanding, fitting with the hostile mood of the piece. The company have had two intensive rehearsal weekends to learn and create material. Ceyda taught us various Kafkas phrases, that she had learnt whilst training in a Turkish dance school last year. I think all the dancers noticed the difference from the Zeybek dances that we had learnt for our previous piece Kartal. The Zeybek dances are controlled, repetitive and slower in pace, whereas, although still being precise, the Kafkas dances are fast and powerful. Kafkas includes explosive jumps, quick turns and strong arm movements with interesting rhythms, making it very exciting to perform. It was amazing how Kafkas lent itself to inspiring contemporary movement material.
I think we all enjoyed incorporating the traditional dance movements into contemporary phrases and it created an interesting movement language for the piece. We all worked on solo phrases and created duet material together.
A few new dancers recently joined us, so it was great to work together, adding different personalities and a new dynamic to the company for this piece. We are working towards creating a full length piece for touring next year, but will be performing an excerpt at Ffin Dance’s Winter Dance Faktry Festival at the weekend (Saturday 17th November). We are looking forward to having a little road trip over to Wales, meeting everyone and performing our brand new piece! Exciting times ahead.
Hayley Ovens
Dancer – Ceyda Tanc Dance