On the 9th of May, together with almost 30 out of 200 conference participants, I had a chance to watch a performance in one of the theaters of Istanbul. As it was one of European Universities Theatre Festival's event, the actors were from Marmara University Ada Dance Theatre Troupe. When we got on the bus, which was supposed to take us to the theatre, I was sure that we were going to the Asian side of Istanbul, where the Marmara University campus is located. I discovered very soon that we were not going to cross the bridge... but before I became really disappointed, it turned out that the theater that we were heading to was in Nişantaşı!Nişantaşı is the quater of Istanbul, about which I've read before in Orhan Pamuk's books. This place is well known for art nouveau buildings, famous people living there and the most expensive shopping area in Turkey. It really doesn't feel like Istanbul there, rather like Madrid.
When our bus stopped near the theatre, we still had a lot of free time before the performance started. We walked for a while along the streets, one of them was full of ladies selling flowers. Meanwhile, I've stepped into Nişantaşı's shopping mall called City's and by chance, checked my mailbox on the computer in the main hall. How is it that people living in rich districts get internet for free even though they probably don't need it and people in average and poor districts have to pay for internet cafes?Few minutes before 17:30 the performance entitled "Sections", was about to start in the theater called RÜŞTÜ UZEL STAGE. I was waiting in the main hall, chatting with some friends and eating pistachio chocolate, which is an important fact coz we don't have such invention in Poland! The other people waiting just like we did, were Turkish families - mostly women with children.
As soon as we entered the theater room, it was visible that more than 2/3 of seats was empty. Due to this fact, I was lucky enough to have a seat in the 2nd row.
The performance begun as it is shown in the picture above. Actually, there were many more hands moving under the curtain... I have few more pictures (none of them was taken by me) but it really doesn't make sense to publish them here. Instead of that I will write about my favourite part.The performance was divided into sections, as the title suggests and there was no need to know Turkish language. There were parts about media, books, music, education, love, rape and few other... The most unforgettable scene for me was about Music. So, in that moment there were many actors on the stage and I can't really remember what was happening with one exception:
There was a tall, thin and long haired girl sitting on the chair. The guy standing behind her started acting as if he was a musician playing on a cello that the girl was pretending to be. The guy was holding the girl's hair straight up as if it was a fingerboard. He was also pretending to be holding a bow and playing, while she was moving her legs and hands in the air, in the rhythm of the music. This episode took a couple of minutes and was so expressive and energetic that I still can't believe it was real!!
Parts of the Cello :)While writing this post I've found an official website of the Theater Troupe that performed:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com
And what is even more, I've found a video, which is a kind of trailer and luckily the cello part also appears for a second:
http://www.danstiyatrosu.com/1videoeng.html
Also, the entire soundtrack was AMAZING but the only song I was able to recognize was:
Working Class Hero by Ozzy Osbourne
And here is the group picture that we took with the actors.Can you see my happy face? :)
No comments:
Post a Comment