Turkish dance

Turkish folk dances are the folk dances of Turkey. On the border between Europe and the Middle East, facing three seas, straddling important trade routes, Turkey has a complex, sophisticated culture, reflected in the variety of its dances. The dominant dance forms are types of line dance. There are many different types of folk dances performed in various ways in Turkey, and these reflect the cultural structure of each region. The 'Bar' in Erzurum province, the 'Halay' in the East and Southeast, the 'Hora' in Thrace, the 'Horon' in the Black Sea, 'Spoon dances' in and around Konya and 'Lezginka' in Kars and Ardahan are the best known examples of these.

Types of dance

Bar

With their structure and formation, they are the dances performed by groups in the open. They are spread, in general, over the eastern part of Anatolia (Erzurum, Bayburt, Agri, Kars, Artvin and Erzincan provinces). The characteristic of their formation is that they are performed side-by-side, hand, shoulder and arm-in-arm. Woman and man bars are different from one another. The principal instruments of our bar dances are davul and zurna (shrill pipe). Later, clarinet has been added to the woman bars. The dominant measures in bars are 5/8 and 9/8. Occasionally measures of 6/8 and 12/8 are used. Aksak 9/8 measures which are also the most characteristic measures, in particular, of the Turkish folk music are applied with extremely different and interesting structures in this dance. They normally wear costumes as they dance. They always dance with pride and they turn their hands as they hop dance.