KAYA: Challenging the theme of displacement and gender stereotypes

Ceyda Tanc, Brighton based artist, founder and the artistic director of Ceyda Tanc Company, will display her latest work “KAYA” during the Brighton Festival, on May 14th, an annual celebration of music, theatre, dance and art. In her interview with DHA, Tanc describes her work as a “contemporary dance work with influence of traditional Turkish folk dance” and adds: “The piece explores human experiences of displacement, drawing on the strength and resilience of those searching for a sense of belonging within a new community.

“The work is based on the village of Kaya in Turkey where I spent a lot of time as a child. The village was home to a Greek community and in 1925 they were forcefully evacuated from their homes resulting in a Turkish/Greek exchange and leaving the village as a ‘ghost town’.

“Through my father's anthropological research, and my time spent living in Kaya as a child, I became increasingly interested in exploring this further within my work.”

Tanc emphasizes that as a company, their goal is to make dance work which is accessible for people of all ages and backgrounds, “to provide an inclusive way for audiences to interact with dance anc find common ground with others in their community”.

Through KAYA, Tanc aims to highlight gender stereotypes and the forced displacement that is still relevant today. Tanc answers the question about the statements she wants to make through her work as follows: “We have developed a unique movement vocabulary, which fuses traditional Turkish folk dance and contemporary dance styles. I aim to challenge gender stereotypes by utilising the virtuoso movements of male Turkish dancers on female bodies.

“Also nearly a hundred years on from the forced displacement of people from Kaya, Turkey is at the epicentre of the Syrian Refugee Crisis, holding over 3.2 million Syrian refugees. I was compelled to make a work that will provoke audiences to reflect on the global scale of displacement prevalent today.

“We hope that people can relate to the human issues explored in the work, link to their own experiences or gain an increased awareness of the different cultural influences within their own communities.”