On the Stages of Istanbul: Atatürk and the New Young Turks

I had drifted asleep to the chants of the muezzin; now I woke to the blaring sounds of a marching band. Below my hotel window a number of high-ranking military, state, and city officials were gathering on a hot May 2006 morning around Cumhuriyet Aniti (The Republic Monument) on Istanbul's busy Taksim Square, the modern heart of the city. Together they went through the annual ritual of commemorating the launching of Mustafa Kemal's counterattack against the Greek forces in Western Turkey in May 1919. The campaign eventually led to the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1922 under Kemal, renamed Atatürk (Father of Turks). I listened as the revels culminated in the playing of "İstiklâl Marşi" (Independence March), the national anthem, which brought the traffic on the square to a sudden standstill, compelling pedestrians to stop and join in the singing. Suddenly this random and diverse flux of people merged into an attentive audience, inadvertently recalling Atatürk's famous adage, immortalized on hundreds of monuments all over the country: "Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyene" (How happy I am to call myself a Turk).¹

Figure 1.

The official celebration of Atatürk'ü Anma, Gençlik ve Spor Bayrami (Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day) around Cumhuriyet Aniti (the Republic Monument) on Taksim Square, Istanbul, 19 May 2006. Spectators join in the singing of "Istiklâl Marşi" (Independence March), the Turkish National Anthem. (Photo by Ilka Saal)

Ironically, even while Istanbullus celebrated Turkish nationhood, an international theatre festival, staged throughout the city, promised to move "Beyond Borders." Such was the motto of the 4th International Theatre Olympics, which in 2006 was hosted by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfi [IKSV]) in conjunction with its own 15th International Theatre Festival. In contrast to the Istanbul Theatre Festival, which was founded in 1989 as an annual festival and has operated since 2002 on a biennial basis, the Theatre Olympics are relatively recent, created in 1995 in order to promote the exchange of national theatre traditions. Previous Olympics have been held in Delphi, Greece; Shizuoka, Japan; and Moscow, Russia. The two festivals last year brought together some 36 groups from 10 countries, including such illustrious names as Theodoros Terzopolous (Greece), Suzuki Tadashi (Japan), Jan Fabre (Belgium), Eimuntas Nekrosius (Lithuania), Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (Belgium), Peter Brook and the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (France), the Cullberg Ballet (Sweden), the Piccolo Teatro di Milano (Italy), and the Taganka Theatre (Russia).

The primary goal of this encounter was, as festival director Dikmen Gürün stressed, to build a bridge between Turkish theatre and the theatre of the world, to bring prominent theatre groups and artists to the attention of Turkish artists and audiences, and to promote joint projects and mutual exchange (2006a:17). Last year's festival motto also encouraged venturing into the hybrid and threshold spaces between and beyond fixed national, cultural, and aesthetic identities. Gürün, who used to work for an airline company so that she could afford to travel to watch world theatre, strongly believes in the mediating power of art, its unique capacity to bring different cultures into close contact and to facilitate mutual

Figure 2.

Three women struggle under the burden of their bags in Bavullar (Suitcases, 2006) by Tiyatro Boyali Kuş (Painted Bird Theatre). (Photo courtesy of Istanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfi [IKSV])

understanding (Gürün 2006b). It was in this spirit that the festival opened with Terzopolous's compelling binational coproduction of The Persians, in which Greek and Turkish actors performed Aeschylus's ancient tale of war and conquest in their own respective languages.

The powerful presence of a now well-established world-theatre avantgarde did not, however, overshadow the emergence of a vibrant young Turkish theatre scene. One of the primary goals of IKSV is to support and promote the work of emerging Turkish artists—artists who are just...