Istanbul Dance Festival
The dance festival
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m going to Istanbul to attend the 10th annual Istanbul Dance Festival. It’s billed as the biggest afro-latin dance festival in the world!
Salsa – Bachata – Kizomba and many related dance styles, 4000 dancers from all over the world attending, shows every night with the professionals performing, workshops led by the pros for all levels of dancers, vendors selling dance shoes and outfits. It’s a lot!
Getting to the festival
The dance festival is at the Pullman, a huge convention hotel located close to the Ataturk airport – which is now closed to international flights. (It was partially destroyed by suicide bombers in 2016, but was being phased out anyway). The new airport is one of the largest in the world, and is an hour’s drive away! But the taxi there costs only 250 lira, about $20.
The Turkish lira is used only in Turkey so it’s most convenient to just get some when you get there. I used the first ATM I found at the airport, and was charged a 10% commission! First ripoff so far… (TIP – just get minimal cash at the airport if you have to, fees will usually be higher than outside the airport).
I arrived in the evening, and it’s 9 hours ahead of my home time, so I went to bed soon after I got to my hotel. I was woken up by the 5 am call to prayer. Most Turkish people are muslim, and prayers are supposed to be performed five times a day. The call to prayer is usually a man singing mournfully over a loudspeaker at a mosque. But why 5 am……
Attending the festival
My online dance teacher, Ezgi Zaman, is leading “bootcamps” that we are invited to attend. We will be seeing her in person after seeing her only on zoom for months on end! These camps are practices for a performance to be done on stage with Ezgi on Sunday night. Yes, we can perform on stage with her!
Ezgi has been performing since she was 3, first as a gymnast, then ballet dancer, and now salsa artist.
We have done the routine in our online classes and I practiced it before coming. But I have an injury that I knew might get in the way… and…. I got through an hour of the bootcamp and realized I had to just watch.
I decided I would pretend, and went to all the practices and dress rehearsals, and met an amazing bunch of dancers from all over the world.
I met people who owned their own dance studios from France, Jordan, and Turkey. A woman who could do acrobatics in heels from Khazhakstan. Fitness models from Germany, Spain and Canada. A Bolivian girl working in Somalia volunteering for the United Nations. A Mexican-American belly dancer. And other great dancers from the United States, Poland, Romania, and even Mongolia! Mind blown.
The performance
The performance went off without a hitch, everyone did an amazing job! I’m pretty sure I could have done the dance, but I definitely would have been in the back row where no one would have even noticed any screwups. I think all eyes were on Ezgi at the front anyway. But these people could dance! (There was one guy in the group, a Turkish dance school owner.)
Some of the girls were very emotional after the performance, it has been their dream to perform on stage with Ezgi.
After a little celebrating, some of the others went for another night of social dancing, with djs playing until 7 am.
It was a great experience even though I couldn’t dance!