Carpe Diem #1489 Dance Like An Eagle (Zeybek)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My apologies for being late with publishing our new episode of Journey Around The World on a Quest for Folkmusic. We have already visited Italy and Portugal en today we are visiting Turkey and especially the region known as Anatolia. We are visiting a dance group who are performing the Zeybek or Dance Like An Eagle. Let me give you a short piece of background on the Zeybek:

Zeybeks are, in general, the widespread folk dances of the Western Anatolia. It is rendered by one person or two or by a group of people and its name changes for example as 'seymen' in the central parts of Anatolia. Zeybek dances are formed, in general, of 9/8 measures and have a variety of tempos such as very slow, slow, fast and very fast. Very slow zeybek dances have the measure of 9/2, slow ones 9/4 and some others 9/8. Very fast dances, for instance, teke (goat) dance seen in Burdur – Fethiye region can be regarded as dances of zeybek character, they have the traditional measure of 9/16 There is another folk dance named as BENGI in the zeybek region. It is performed more differently from the zeybek and has got a different musical feature and the most characteristic measure of bengi dance is 9/8. Particularly in slow zeybeks, the traditional instruments is drum- zurna combination. The use of 2 drums and 2 zurnas in combination is a tradition, function of one of the zurnas is accompaniment, in other words, it accompanies the melody with a second constant tune. Apart from drum-zurna, a three-double string instrument baglama, reed, marrow bow etc. are used for fast zeybek dances. In particular, the traditional instrument of the teke (goat) dance region is reed.

Zeybek dancers in Anatolia Turkey (Wikipedia)

It's a simple, but very beautiful dance. I was anxious to find some music-videos in which this dance is performed, to look at the dance, but also to hear what kind of folk-music is used while dancing the Zeybek. 

 

 

Well ... did you like this folkmusic from Anatolia Turkey? And the performers of the Zeybek? I loved watching it and listen to the music. In a way it feels familiar, but on the other hand it seems like this music sounds unclear.

 

I had some difficulties to create a haiku or tanka inspired on this music, but maybe it will come to me later this week. For now ... have fun and be inspired.

 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissons and will remain open until August 9th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode, a weekend-meditation, later on.