TRACING TRADITION THROUGH DANCE: From Dream to Action, From Action to Tradition

This applied workshop examines the formation process of folk dances as dynamic practices constructed through collective repetition and normalization. The study aims to make experientially visible the process that extends from the emergence of dance as an individual image (dream), to its stabilization through repetition within the community, and ultimately to its transformation into transferable cultural knowledge through written systems.

The theoretical framework is grounded in the concepts of embodiment, performative repetition, and the construction of tradition. In this context, folk dances are considered performative structures that become stabilized through repetition of individual creations, normalized through social consensus, and structured within specific aesthetic and rhythmic boundaries. Through practice, examples such as the bodily unity observed in Halay and the performative social pleasure of synchronized collective movement, the elements that shape the individual dance aesthetics of the Zeybek form, and the norm-producing function of bodily repetition will be made visible. These examples will be transferred from theory to performance within a sequential integrity, using ethnokoreological methods.

The 90-minute workshop consists of three phases. In the first phase, participants engage in individual and group improvisations based on an imagined social experience. In the second phase, selected movement motifs are repeated and stabilized; elements such as rhythm, spatial formation, and leadership are normalized through guided interventions. In the final phase, movement notation is introduced. In line with the fundamental principles of the notation approach developed by Rudolf Laban, the produced dance phrases are recorded using simplified symbols and subsequently re-read.

The workshop aims to establish an interdisciplinary bridge between creative drama pedagogy and ethnocoreology.