Turkish-Greek cooperation in theater continues at int'l festivals

A festival titled “Talking About My Generation,” organized on Nov. 14 and 15 in Greece by the European Commission and the Greek non-governmental organization, ANCE, was the opportunity for the Turkish “Hangar Foundation” to get in touch with the Greek public.

The foundation also invited leading Turkish actress and a strong supporter of human rights, Derya Durmaz, to the festival, which aims to raise public awareness about problems regarding the second generation immigrants in Greece and in Europe. It also offers the opportunity for young immigrants to express themselves through art, to get to know each other and become active citizens.

“Hangar Art Foundation” was formed by a group of young people with different political, social and professional backgrounds, who wanted to promote art as a daily practice and tool for social development. The foundation organizes street festivals and, in parallel, their members participate in festivals related to human rights and youth issues, among other things.

During their time in Greece, the members of the foundation organized an artistic project with the theme “immigrants of second generation.” During the festival, young second-generation immigrants had the chance to co-operate with each other and with activists from NGO’s in workshops that targeted the engagement of youth with the rest of society.

In parallel, actress Durmaz and other Greek actresses discussed possible future cooperation between Greece and Turkey in the field of arts.

Durmaz spoke to the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review about her visit to Greece and the interesting common projects between Greece and Turkey in theater.

“I have facilitated the screening and discussion session of the movie ‘Refugee,’ which is a Turkish movie I am in. I also have been one of the keynote speakers in the press conference of the festival, and talked about the situation of migrants and refugees throughout the world,” said Durmaz, while explaining the reasons why she was invited to the festival.

Discussing the Greek-Turkish cooperation in the field of theater, Durmaz said Greeks and Turks had a lot in common, they resemble and compliment each other in many ways.

“They almost have their own unique Aegean culture in the middle of Europe and Asia. Yet one combines it with the overall European culture and the other with the Middle Eastern and Asian cultures, all these similarities make it so easy to work and create together and all the differences enrich the quality of the artwork created,” she said.

She said she had been working with the Athens based Persona Theatre since 2004 and they had produced two plays so far. “The first play, ‘Clytemnestra's Tears’ started out as the Turkish version of a one-woman-play written by the director and playwright Avra Sidiropoulou, and previously performed in English and Greek. But as we got to know each other and we kept working and reflecting on the text, we came to a point where we decided to perform the play not only in Turkish, but also in Greek and English at the same time, on the same stage by three actors that are native speakers of these languages,” she said.

Durmaz said a paper titled “Clytemnestra Plus: Transnationalizing Women’s Stage” was written on the play and submitted in the theater congress, IFTR 2006 in Helsinki. “They also have requested the DVD of the play to include in the course program of the theater division of the University of California, for its success in bringing different languages, cultures and emotional expressions on stage.”

Invited to International Festivals

Durmaz said they had recently produced their new play “And God Said” with Persona Theatre as a Greek and Turkish project. She and another Turkish actor were performing the play, written and directed by Sidiropoulou again.

“Just like in our previous play, we have people working on the production both from Turkey and Greece. It is again a very innovative project combining different languages with animation functioning as almost a third actor on stage and original music composed for the play. It is performed in English mainly, but the last part of the play is performed in the language of the country it is performed in. That is a very challenging thing for a director and actors to take on,” she said.

The play’s world premiere was in Istanbul in May 2009. Durmaz said they would perform it in the International Fair Theatre Festival in Tehran in January 2010. “We have also been invited to perform it in two different festivals in Morocco in May-June 2010. Our plan is to perform the play in Athens and New York, too,” she said.

Durmaz said since they were an independent group of artists, they needed support to take stage in Athens and New York. “I hope festivals and institutions that support theater will also support our efforts of bringing cultures and people together in order to find a common ground of creating, feeling and being,” she said, adding a quote by her favorite novelist Tom Robbins. “Our similarities bring us to a common ground; our differences allow us to be fascinated by each other.”

As for the problems of Turkish artists, Durmaz said the problems of Turkish artists were not dramatically different than the ones in other countries. According to her, in addition to common problems, the artists in Turkey also have copyright problems and social rights such as having the opportunity to have collective agreements through unions, having a minimum wage level, maximum working hours level and job security precautions.