Dance Festival 2

On Sunday night we went to our second Da:ns Festival event; ‘Waves of Love, The World of the Whirling Dervishes’ by the Istanbul Historical Turkish Music Ensemble. This was unlike anything I have ever seen or heard before. Because this is something I knew absolutely nothing about before booking the tickets, I’m going to quote the evenings program to explain what it was about.

“The ancient sacred ritual of the sema performance of the Mevlevi order of Sufism is regarded as one of the most beautiful and mesmerising expressions of spirituality and art. With origins in Turkey and inspired by the great 13th century mystic, poet and philosopher, Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi, the ritual seeks divinity and maturity, carrying his message of love, brotherhood and tolerance…[Performed] by the Istanbul Historical Turkish Music Ensemble as part of the world’s celebration of the 800th anniversary of Rumi’s birth, an event recognised by UNESCO.”

In silence a group of 20 men slowly stepped in single file onto the stage, each pausing to bow to a red sheepskin which was placed on the opposite side of the stage. The men – singers and musicians – each slowly made their way to a slightly raised podium at the rear of the stage where they sat and picked up their various Turkish instruments, most of which were unfamiliar to us. The singers stood like statues at the back. When all was still again, the process was repeated by the 8 dancers and their two ‘leaders’, who very slowly and rhythmically moved into the places on the stage and began a slow pacing, in step, in a circle around the stage, accompanied by the haunting unaccompanied voice of a lone singer.

“…the sema is a ritual conceived…as a form of prayerful meditation. Mevlana’s followers, the Mevleviye, adopted this ritual and are today commonly known to the English-speaking world as the Whirling Dervishes (semazens) for their practice of whirling as they meditate. Indeed, the whirling rituals of the Mevleviye have endured through time, and have become deeply entrenched in Turkish culture and heritage.
"Similar to the established order in nature, from the atoms in materials, cells in living bodies, our life cycles to the planetary systems, sema engages the semazens in a shared experience of revolving motion.
“The sema ceremony represents a spiritual journey that unifies the human mind, emotion, body and spirit…With feet firmly on the ground, left hand turned towards the earth and right hand outstretched to God in prayer, the semazen is the point of contact between God and the earth, the channel through which divine blessings flow. Revolving from right to left as he silently prays, the semazen embraces all creation.”

With the musicians and singers performing the dancers began their graceful whirling, turning on the spot with the right foot spinning their bodies as the left remained firmly in place. With heads leaning to one side the dancers remained perfectly poised and balanced despite having their eyes shut the entire time. Their hands rose slowly along their torsos until reaching above their heads, they slowly lowered the arms again to achieve a horizontal position, one hand cupped upwards, the other down.

It was a very unusual yet spell binding event to watch, one which on the one hand was completely outside our world of experience and so made us feel like complete strangers, yet which was so engaging and transfixing that you couldn’t help being drawn into it. The repetitive ceremony, the ‘salutes’ (bows) offered throughout, the flowing white clothes and haunting music all serve to transfix the audience. Above all the message conveyed through the ritual is one that embraces all people regardless of race or religion and touches a chord in any human soul.

“Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper, or the idolatrous, come!
Come even if you have broken your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are”

"These worlds by Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi, maybe said to encapsulate his original Sufi doctrine of unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love.”